Comments / New

Kings @ Sharks Game One Recap: All Hope is Lost

Posted on by Robyn Pennington

In typical Kings fashion, LA starts off sluggish, can’t handle the San Jose Sharks speed and loses Game 1 of 82.

Jonathan Quick kept his team from being sufficiently embarrassed in the first period after things settled down following a chaotic first five minutes of the opening frame. Then, on the last shift of the period, he suffered a lower body injury.

Some other notable events from the opening frame:

  • Tyler Toffoli scored a beautiful goal, top shelf where mom keeps the cookies, on the power play, on his ex-BFF Martin Jones.
  • Logan Couture scored on the Sharks’ second power play of the game, though it was initially waved off.
  • Jonathan Quick tried to fight Joe Pavelski, prompting twitter to make all kinds of baby / infantile jokes.
  • The Kings barely managed to hold on for the rest of the period and didn’t give up any additional goals!
  • Oh and there’s also this:

The second period was slightly better. Jeff Zatkoff started in net, kept his team afloat, made some good saves and overall, did a pretty good job. This was an incredibly boring period with not much to speak of. Our good pals over at Fear the Fin noted that San Jose backup Aaron Dell changed his head wear on the bench.

Well, and after LA killed a penalty, Kyle Clifford actually made a really nice play.

Still, it was only a minimal improvement.

The third period started off with hope. The game was tied. They could do this. They’ve done worse and still managed to win! And then Brent Burns decided that a tie game wasn’t fun anymore. With the Kings in scramble mode, Burns picked up a loose puck and went bar down. It was a thing of beauty. And a reminder that oh yeah, the Kings’ bottom-six is still cringe-worthy despite the lies we told ourselves over the summer.

Was it all bad? Uhhh… Well… Kinda. Zatkoff made a big stop to keep the game close and then there’s this.

But there’s hope! Anze Kopitar will keep working hard no matter what the score is and there are still 81 games left in the season for the Kings to turn things around.

Even with dark clouds on the horizon, there is reason to be optimistic! Darryl Sutter himself sounded hopeful in the bench interview during the second period, saying that they’ll get better at zone exits with time. And he didn’t look like a miserly codger when he watched the Kings shit the bed. Plus, Tanner Pearson will be back for Tuesday’s tilt against the Minnesota Wild, well rested from his two-game pre-and-regular seasons suspension for a careless hit on Oilers defenseman Brandon Davidson.

This is the Kings and they won’t suck forever. They’ll eventually get things together and look like the possession powerhouse we know them to be.

Plus, their home opener is on Friday night and it’s actually against a NON division or even conference rival! This should at least make for a semi-interesting game because the Flyers have a ton of young talent up and down their lineup.

So guys, don’t be like this guy:

Be like this guy!

Talking Points