Some notes from last night’s game…
– The Kings completed their season series with Columbus as they beat the Blue Jackets 4-2 on Friday night at Nationwide Arena.
– The Kings improved to 6-2-1 in their last nine games and finished their series against Columbus with a 3-1-0 record, including one shootout win.
– Anze Kopitar scored the Kings’ first three goals and completed the Kings’ second hat trick of the season with 8:47 remaining in the second period. It was the second hat trick of Kopitar’s career, following the three goals he scored on Oct. 22, 2009, against Dallas at STAPLES Center. The franchise record for most goals in a game is four, which has been done 17 times, most recently by Luc Robitaille on Nov. 25, 1993, at Quebec. Kopitar leads the Kings with 24 goals and 69 points in 68 games this season and has seven goals and seven assists in his last nine games.
– The Kings went 1-for-5 on the power play and 3-for-3 on the penalty kill. The Kings are 17-for-17 on the penalty kill in their last five games and have killed 18 consecutive opponents’ power plays overall.
– The Blue Jackets outshot the Kings 34-22, including 14-3 in the third period.
– The Kings improved to 18-14-3 on the road, 29-10-2 when scoring first, 17-3-2 when leading after the first period and 21-0-1 when leading after the second period. The Kings are 31-7-2 when scoring three or more goals and 30-6-2 when allowing two or fewer goals.
– Jonathan Bernier stopped 32 of 34 shots in the win. Bernier has allowed two or fewer goals in three of his last four starts and in seven of his last nine starts.
– Justin Williams had one goal and two assists, including one power-play assist. Williams has two goals and five assists in his last four games.
– Drew Doughty had two assists, giving him 26 assists and 36 points this season.
– Jack Johnson had a power-play assist. Johnson ranks second on the Kings with 36 assists, and 24 of those assists have come on the power play.
– Dustin Brown had one assist and ranks third on the Kings with 45 points in 68 games.
– Dustin Penner had one assist. Penner has one goal and three assists in his five games with the Kings.
– Matt Greene had one assist, his eighth assist of the season.
– Anze Kopitar recorded a team-high four shots on goal. Matt Greene was credited with a team-high three hits and Willie Mitchell was credited with a team-high four blocked shots.
– Drew Doughty played a game-high 24 minutes, 15 seconds. Michal Handzus led all Kings forwards in ice time at 21:09.
– The Kings won 35 of 59 faceoffs (59 percent). Jarret Stoll won 11 of 14 draws (79 percent).
didn’t Richardson have a hat trick in Colorado this year?
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Rich Hammond Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 10:34 am
Correct, thanks…
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kennynakamoto Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 10:35 am
@LAK, YAH
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The Kings are 14-3-4 in their past 21 games!!!! that awesome!!! the only bad thing is we are tied for 5th and on the bubble of the 9th seed…….. how crazy is this season???? talk about huge games in our last back to back game, great game last night guys!! go kings go!!! and another must win on sunday
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On the down side, the Kings are getting regularly outshot in victories. Normally, I’d say a lot of it has to do with protecting a lead and giving up garbage shots, but bad first periods have been involved, too.
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Bob Bobson Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:44 am
@What’s the frequency, Kenneth?, That is an issue that cannot continue in the playoffs
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Kings now have the 4th best record in the West….games-in-hand on PHX & CGY…..one more win than CHI
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NoDoughty Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:19 am
@Real 7, SO wins don’t count in a tiebreaker situation, and the won the season series, that’s why CHI is ahead of us in the standings.
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NoDoughty Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:19 am
@NoDoughty, *they*
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Hey Rich is there any website that shows were teams were at this time last year?
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8 players have been in every game….all 68
Kopitar, Williams, Brown, Johnson, Smyth, Stoll, Handzus & Scuderi
Penner has missed just 1 game, Simmonds 2, Clifford 4 & Doughty 6….
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Scot Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:31 am
@Real 7,
You knock on wood!
I was just telling my buddy yesterday how remarkably durable the Kings have been this season. After suffering through a few injury-plagued seasons in the past decade or so (LAPD line, then the “Demitra/Roenick” season), it’s been so nice having everyone virtually healthy all season. We take Kopitar’s durability for granted. When was the last time we saw a Kings game without him in the lineup? I don’t know the number, is it 300+ games? He’s one of the NHL’s ironmen. If he went down, what a void that would create. There is something to be said for players who can sustain production and health for a long period of time.
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i hope Kopitar gets first star for the week.
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NoDoughty Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:17 am
@Newf, He does! Check out NHL.com
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Real 7 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:33 am
@NoDoughty, the NHL won’t name stars-of-the-week until Monday…..last week Iginla wa #1
http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=555233
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a defenseman once scored 5 goals in a game, and it wasn’t Bobby Orr….a member of our own alumni
After two years of learning the ropes Ian found his niche in his 3rd NHL season, 1975-76. Ian exploded for 20 goals and 56 points. Turnbull, the 15th overall draft choice in 1973, was finally putting up good numbers. His production was a tremendous help for Borje Salming, the Leafs undisputed number one defenseman. Now the opposition teams had another pointman to worry about.
The following season Turnbull stepped it up another notch, scoring a career high 22 goals, 57 points and 79 points, as well as recording a fine +47 defensive rating. Five of Turnbull’s 22 goals came on the memorable night of February 2, 1977. Turnbull became the first and so far only defenseman to score 5 goals in a game, as the Leafs beat Detroit 9-1.
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interesting page on the history of Kings hat tricks…
the NATURAL hat trick was by Alexander Frolov, 11/13/05 at Columbus
http://kings.nhl.com/club/page.htm?bcid=20874
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Real 7 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:25 am
@Real 7, I left out “the LAST NATURAL…”
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looks like kopitar got the message about looking up and shooting
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BringBackTheShieldJersey Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:34 am
@ziggy, Control your snark. None of his goals came from “looking up and shooting.”
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DougS Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
@BringBackTheShieldJersey,
He and Foxy joked about that on the post-1st period interview. Kopi scored 2 without even taking a shot.
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KC23 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:53 am
@ziggy, Yep, two deflections and a breakaway.
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BobKnob Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 6:29 pm
@ziggy,
lol
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anyone wonder how Stoll is so good at faceoffs?
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Real 7 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:35 am
@Paul G, it must be his arthritis….jk
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Doc.B Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
@Paul G, Stoll said on FSN that he cheats.
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Currently the are only 2 teams in the Western conference who are below .500. Anahiem is 11 games above and still on the outside looking in. The Eastern conference has 6 teams that are .500 or below and Carolina is only 4 games above .500 and outside looking in. The Kings are 13 games above .500 and still no seperation.
Fortunately if we go 1 game above .500 for the rest of the season we’ll have 96 points, pretty much giving us a sloid spot in the playoffs. Anything past that would be gravy though. Would love to catch San Jose and win the division.
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Token Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:45 am
@Dominick, The simulator gizmo has the Kings projected at 98-100 on the season as the range with the most calculations.
Sharks are projected at 100-102.
That is pretty much 2 out of 3 win %.
All we gotta do is beat the Sharks and we got a chance at 3rd.
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Real 7 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:49 am
@Token, that’s about right….I had us at 98 pts. when I calc’ed it mid-February, and it looks pretty bang on…
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tuan jim Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 2:02 pm
@Real 7,
Will you please shut the hell up! You and everybody else! You’re gonna put the whammy on us.
I still remember Luc saying we were gonna make the playoffs — just before we lost the last eleven (?) games.
Hip-Check Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:50 am
@Dominick, Last night I predicted 101 to 104 points as I estimated the teams for the remaining games…Quite probable in my opinion..of course it isnt a quarantee just a prediction.
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Goring 19 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
@Dominick, what would be our position in the standings if we didn’t have that disastrous home stand?
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Dominick Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
@Goring 19,
We went 2-10-0 from Dec. 29th to Jan. 20th. If we would have won at least 4 of those games and gone .500 during that span, we would be looking at 2nd place 1 point ahead of Detroit. Sadly we’ve been winning at a higher rate since, but I doubt we’ll catch Detroit, unless they start losing at a .250 rate, but that would open the door for Chicago to pass us since they play Detroit 3 more times.
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Kopi’s hat trick….love that breakaway goal….and , wait for it….the Williiams score
http://video.kings.nhl.com/videocenter/console?id=102466&catid=-6
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9-1-3 in our last 13 on the road has really saved our season
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KC23 Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:58 am
@Kings win, Ducks lose, It sure did. Who woulda thunk it after that pitiful homestand.
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DougS Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
@KC23,
The Kings were due both to play worse at home and play better on the road. Regression to the mean, as they say in statistics. Their home record into December was way better than it was last season, and their road record was way worse, and it was bound to correct.
What’s goofy is that both the home and road records corrected all at once, rather than gradually over the rest of the season.
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friarking Reply:
March 12th, 2011 at 11:59 am
@Kings win, Ducks lose, yeah, big time. It’d be a different story even if the team went 9-3-0 instead. It’s crazy how close everything is. I wish baseball was this competetive.
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unsung heroes…..never out of position, always makes the right play….
*Rob Scuderi & Willie Mitchell pretty much are tied, in my mind….these guys have been awesome…
for the forwards, Handzus & Kopitar come pretty close…
*one bad play vs. VAN, when he tripped, is all I can recall….WM: nothing stands out as bad, but of course nobody’s perfect…
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