1. Has anyone offered any explanation of the Kings struggles 5-on-3 (and 6-on-3 for that matter)?

2. Who/what do you believe to have more special powers – Jurai Mikus or Jim’s Jacket?

3. Would it produce synergy or a cataclysm if Jurai wore The Jacket to the Staples Center?

re: your question about the camera’s missing things.

It is generally not the cameraman’s fault, but rather the director and assistant director calling the broadcast in the booth. They have many cameras to monitor, and it is up to the director to call out which camera to cut to on the broadcast at what point, and then it is the job of the AD (sometimes called technical director, or switcher) to swiftly punch that camera onto the line monitor. Its impossible to tell from TV whose the guilty party, but most likely its the director. If the AD was bad at quickly punching up new angles, he would probably be fired quicker than the director would be for being slow to call out the shots.

It is not the main cameraman’s job to follow the interesting things on the ice. That is for the roamers and CU cameramen. Sure, they go in an out and switch, and the director will communicate with the camerman to follow or pick up certain shots, but the standard camera view you are referring to in your question, that lags on the puck when a fight or something is taking place off screen, is doing his job, which is to follow the puck. It is up to the director to recognize when something more interesting is happening, and either tell the AD to punch it up, or tell one of his cameramen to get a better angle on it. It could be the cameramans fault if there is no shot of something that is happening, the director instructs him to follow it, and the cameraman is slow to get his frame and focus. The kiss of death for a TV broadcast is cutting live to roaming camera that is whipping quickly to find a frame or blurry while finding its focus.

Hope that helps.

It is a pandemic problem though, that bothers me incessantly and I believe is simply because the television crew is a tv crew first and hockey people second. Hockey has a very specific and difficult flow to follow, and it takes the right combination of a crack broadcast team, and a director with ample general hockey knowledge, to keep up with and pull off a real quality broadcast. In fact, the only benefit of that recent game against the Leafs not being on FSN, was getting to watch the Leafs’ telecast, which I must say was incredible. They clearly understood the flow of the game and utilized all their angles quickly and precisely.

Regarding Lewis, Hickey and Loktionov -

For what it’s worth, I have been told by someone that would be aware of what’s going on, that all 3 are at one stage or another doing PT. Lewis s/b the first one back, maybe sometime next month.

Not really much info. that would surprise anyone, but it’s a little something for you!