Waking up with the Kings: April 27

Several abbreviated notes from Los Angeles’ Game 5 victory over San Jose:

-The one-game-at-a-time approach never wavers, but at this point the Kings have succeeded in taking a substantial step towards emerging from a three-nothing hole: they’ve brought the series back to Los Angeles for Game 6. The backbone of winning a key playoff game at the Shark Cage is formed by a standout Jonathan Quick performance in net, and the Kings goaltender was superb when tested on Saturday night. He didn’t need to make a surplus of acrobatic saves, with the signature denial coming on Brent Burns’ power play one-timer from the left circle in the second period. But he stopped one or two Grade-As, a handful of Grade-Bs, and relied on excellent work by the skaters in front of him in channeling San Jose pressure towards the outside and by his defensemen on getting sticks on pucks and denying would-be clean looks at the net.

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-The first 20 minutes of play were the strongest stretch of hockey that the Kings have played in the postseason and represented a tight, comprehensive puck possession demonstration in which they exhibited the turnover-free, tightly grouped puck advancement that they had sought to execute during the turnover-prone first two games of the series. There’s the memorable Dustin Brown quote from early in the 2012-13 season following a loss in Detroit in which Jonathan Ericsson squeaked a game-winner past Jonathan Quick shortly after Alec Martinez had scored a game-tying goal with the goaltender pulled. The loss dropped the Kings to 3-5-2 following a game in which they put up 47 shots on their opponents. “Let’s just say we haven’t been playing our best hockey and sometimes you say at the end of losing streaks and at the end of winning streaks sometimes you’re losing games you shouldn’t, and sometimes you’re winning games you shouldn’t, as well,” Brown said. The “at the end of losing streaks” and “you’re losing games you shouldn’t” portions of his quote are applicable in the development of this series. Los Angeles was mistake prone in the first two games before performing well in a narrow loss in Game 3. In Games 4 and 5, they’ve been the better team. Two regulation losses, one overtime loss, and two wins.

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-Tyler Toffoli and Tanner Pearson connected on an impressive goal that opend the scoring and served as the game-winner on a sprint into the offensive zone midway through the first period. Pearson has a pretty impressive top speed, and he used it in beating Marc-Edouard Vlasic to a 50-50 puck with enough time to be able to make a play. I’m not sure how he saw Toffoli enter the zone behind him, but he offered a no-look pass at a 45-degree angle to a pinpoint spot on the ice where Toffoli would be able to snap a quick shot off, and the rookie sniper did just that – his quick, contested release beat Niemi and served as an appropriate representation of the team’s early first period dominance. After a pair of undistinguished performances in Games 1 and 2, Toffoli has won a good portion of puck battles and has shown a committed willingness to play physical in his adaptation to postseason hockey. Since rejoining the lineup, Pearson has shown good legs and a high level of energy in his limited minutes.

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