Waking up with the Kings: November 20

Amongst the teams that play with excellent structure, there are three – New Jersey, Minnesota and Los Angeles – that, when facing one another, tend to avoid any sort of gripping, chance-tradey theatre of offense. These games are often tight-checking, closer-to-the-vest affairs, and in a 1:00 p.m. nonconference game in which Anze Kopitar, Marian Gaborik, Jonathan Quick, Taylor Hall and Michael Cammalleri were not in uniform, Saturday’s game had the potential to be the hockey representation of My Dinner with Andre instead of, say, Con Air. But there was a payoff for Kings fans, and against a team that ranked amongst the five best defensive teams with an average of 2.1 goals against per game, L.A. put three pucks past Corey Schneider and tacked on an empty-netter to score four goals in a regular season game against New Jersey for the first time since Stephane Fiset and Manny Legace combined to stop all 40 shots in a 4-0 win at Continental Airlines Arena on October 28, 1998. The last regular season home win over the Devils? October 30, 2010. Ilya Kovalchuk heard his share of boos that night.

(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

Until New Jersey’s mid-third period push, Los Angeles was in pretty sturdy control of this one. Possession doesn’t always transfer into offense (see: Kings games), but the Kings were the superiors in both and through a well checked second period, created opportunities off their forecheck and turned them into cold, hard goals. The most visible representation of this was Tanner Pearson’s go-ahead second period marker, in which Devin Setoguchi’s pressure in the right corner allowed Jeff Carter to enter the zone after a line change and pester Damon Severson enough so that the young defenseman heard footsteps while trying to advance the puck after receiving it from Andy Greene, but didn’t get much of it. That flub allowed Pearson to blast off from the ladies’ tees, and his slapshot deflected off Schneider’s shoulder and bounced into the net. While all lines checked well, for the most part, it was once again Carter’s line that carried both the tangibles and intangibles. During this period in which Anze Kopitar is on the mend, Carter, an alternate captain, has done everything that could possibly be asked of him while emerging as the team’s most impactful forward at all areas of the ice. He was the first star for the second game in a row, and if Los Angeles is to emerge from the Honda Center with a win this evening, his line will need to contribute another similar performance.

(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

For the last two years, whenever I spoke with Rob Blake about the team’s prospects, the sentiment surrounding one player hardly changed. There were, though, many variations of Nic Dowd Is Pretty Good At Hockey: “Nic Dowd, he makes plays” was one. “We’ve been impressed with Dowd’s playmaking ability.” “You’ll see how well Dowd can make plays.” These are paraphrases of actual quotes, but the sentiment was clear – the team saw the now-26-year-old elder statesman amongst the prospect pipeline as a player capable of, well, making plays. That was clear yet again in the slick, between-his-legs puck management that preceded his backhand feed to Alec Martinez for the game-tying goal. The goal was the reward for what was perhaps the team’s best shift of the game. They generated chances from close range, won battles along the boards, pinned the Devils back in their own zone and created gridlock typical of the corner of Barrington and Santa Monica at 5:00 p.m. on a Thursday in front of Corey Schneider. Devin Setoguchi didn’t earn an assist on that play, but he was once again responsible for taking away Schneider’s eyes as Martinez’s perfectly placed shot appeared to clip the underside of the crossbar before hitting pay dirt.

(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

(Photo by Juan Ocampo/NHLI via Getty Images)

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