Bringin' It Home

Tonight the Kings played division rival Dallas Stars. I wish I had a more clever title for this post, or that my introductory sentence was more engaging. But I don't. Live with it. Perhaps the biggest story in this game is the fact that Alexander Frolov would be a healthy scratch. Frolov is one of the centerpiece players for the Los Angeles Kings, and has scored thirty goals twice in his relatively young career. Despite his important role for the Kings, Frolov has not played terribly well this season, and played particularly bad in the last game against the Blue Jackets, making a truly awful pass that lead directly to a goal. In addition to Frolov's healthy scratch, the Kings have been suffering from a flu bug, that's sidelined or weakened a number of their players.

The question then becomes, how will the Kings respond to this adversity. I suppose the other question might be, how will Frolov respond to being benched, but we'll have to wait to see the answer to that question. To begin the game, the Kings looked solid, though not great. After making a few excellent saves, Quick was beaten with only a couple minutes left in the first period, allowing the Stars to go into intermission, down 1-0.

The first period was disappointing, and it didn't seem like it was going to get any better in the 2nd period. The Kings had a 2-man advantage early in the period for almost a full two-minutes, which they were unfortunately unable to cash in on. They did however manage to hit the post THREE TIMES. Once the first penalty expired, Brown fired a weak shot from the edge, which made its way into the net via Ryan Smyth. The Kings haven't been playing terribly well with three straight losses, but as the 2nd period progressed, they seemed like they had their game together for this one, and I know I for one was hoping they'd be able to put it together and close out the longest road trip of the season at 3-3. Another goal, this one by Justin Williams put the Kings up 2-1 and placed the Kings in everyone's most tense situations, the one-goal lead. Shortly afterward, the Williams-Kopitar-Smyth line utterly dominated the Stars, and topped it all off with another goal. Kings 3 Stars 1.

Third period was some kind of stressful, as the Stars dominated the Kings for long stretches at a time. That said, the Kings showed some real grit, and Quick demonstrated why some people think he's got a future as a talented starting keeper for years to come. Simmonds added an empty net goal, to finish the game and the road-trip off.

Next up: Stars (again)

Result: Stars 1 Kings 4