Angeles Analysis – Two Vantage Points

2 down, 80 to go.

Those two games, for me, had quite the difference in vantage points.

Game 1 in Buffalo was the first road game I’ve missed during the regular season since joining the Kings in 2020. Until Thursday, I had attended 151 consecutive road games, plus 10 games in Edmonton in the postseason. Without going into a ton of detail, I had to head home for a few days for a personal matter. Sucked, for a few reasons, but it was exciting to get back to it in Boston.

Perhaps I am slightly responsible for the Buffalo jinx, although I did take in the 3-0 victory over the Sabres back in 2022, when Trent Yawney was the head coach filling in for Todd McLellan, who was out with COVID. Still, Anze Kopitar is averaging three goals per game I miss and zero per game I attend. You do the math.

Thus, being at home, I watched the game as most Kings fans do when the team is on the road – on my television. Funnily enough, home for me is Upstate New York, which is an MSG Network market. The Kings/Sabres game was on MSG locally, so the Bally Sports West feed was not available on ESPN+, as it was an in-market game. So, I watched the other team’s broadcast, though without a ton of attention paid to the play-by-play, minus a nice recognition for Rochester, New York’s own Nick Nickson, with the Sabres honoring him during the game as he enters his final season behind the mic.

Watching the TV feed was weird. Not the quality of it, but I watching the game as I normally try to, just through a TV screen. I find that you get much less of a feel for the intensity and the physicality of the game watching from home. Someone asked me on social media if I felt the team was playing more physically, as they’ve stated they want to. I honestly wasn’t sure. I find that you miss seeing some plays develop, without that high vantage point of the entire ice, though you get a better sense of replays than you do in a press box, which may sometimes be limited to whatever is shown on the jumbotron. I certainly felt they started the clock way to late at the end of the first period, making that near goal against closer than it should’ve been. No harm, no foul I suppose. I felt free to take in the game, tweeting every so often, with perhaps a couple of beverages in between.

Regardless of the vantage point, however, it was apparent that it wasn’t the team’s finest showing. It was apparent very quickly. It wasn’t LA Kings hockey, in just about any sense of the phrase. We did see that style, actually, but it was Buffalo who was delivering it. Found myself as frustrated as I am sure many of you were, and as frustrated as the players and coaches themselves were. All of that to describe a season-opening victory, in an arena that has been a house of horrors for the Kings to visit. In Game 82, we certainly won’t be reflecting on how the two points in Buffalo were earned. You take it and move on.

For Game 2, I was back in person. Back into the routine of the day-to-day of being on the road. While it is not home, the road is often where I feel most at home. Leading interviews after practice, requesting players, crafting storylines, writing out questions and getting the answers that hopefully help to keep everyone informed on where the team is at. Same goes for the games. It’s the easiest place to build a routine and I thrive on routine. It felt so nice to be back, especially after a week which felt anything but nice.

Coming back to Massachusetts too was a good one to be thrown back into. The game in Boston has a little bit of extra juice to it. Always. It’s funny. I feel like Kings games in Boston have more intensity than those in Anaheim or San Jose. It’s not a rivalry, really in any sense of the word, but there’s just a different feeling when the Kings play at TD Garden. The feeling that you usually feel in those divisional matchups. Energy is always good, physicality is usually high and there’s almost always a flair for the dramatic. We learned a couple things in the process. The overtime rotation of defensemen was Brandt Clarke 1, Adrian Kempe 2, Vladislav Gavrikov 3, showing Jim Hiller’s willingness to roll three forwards in overtime, with his trust shown in Kempe. Hiller said after the game that Kempe would have been next up had the Kings not lost the game, again playing defense with two other forwards.

I thought, from my vantage point, for the most part, first 40 minutes were good. Until the Bruins scored 4-on-4, I thought the Kings were playing their best stretch of hockey of the season. We saw a team playing their game, on the front foot, which we really didn’t see much of in Buffalo. A bit more precision offensively and that’s a different game. The 4-on-4 changed things, though. The Kings had to defend a bit and they had to grind their way into overtime to get a point. It was teetering for sure in the third and ultimately, overtime was probably a fair outcome for both clubs.

Kyle Burroughs said after the game that it’s not always a Picasso painting in those moments. Sometimes, when you’re playing on the road, and AC/DC is playing over the speakers, and you’re expecting to get hit, you’ve just got to find a way. The Kings found a way to get into overtime. They couldn’t get the job done, despite a few Grade-A opportunities in the first two minutes of the extra session. Oh so close from Quinton Byfield. A couple of failed attempts at clearing the puck led to tired skaters on the ice. Tired skaters led to a defensive breakdown and an elite forward made them pay from a dangerous area. Saw it unfold quite clearly from above. I actually liked a few things the Kings did early in the OT session, but it was ultimately the long shift that mattered. A point on the road, though not the second point we’re used to seeing come through in Boston.

Now, it’s on to Ottawa, where the Kings will take on the Senators tomorrow afternoon. Another matinee, on Canadian Thanksgiving, before it’s off to Toronto and Montreal to continue to the trip.