- Andrei Loktionov drew a penalty, helped Brown draw another one on the 2-on-1, should have drawn another when he was thrown to the ice in the crease, hit the post, had three shots, was 3-for-3 on face-offs, and could have scored a handful of goals. Yes, I know: he didn’t. But that same performance will get him a hat-trick in the future. At least he looked alive, and made room for himself, and others.
- Anze Kopitar. Not to pile on, but jeez! Two shots, looked asleep. I wrote a post about a year ago with a title like “Teddy Purcell is not making Anze Kopitar suck.” That was of course during his giant dry-spell, which now just blends together with this year’s giant dry-spell. He made several nice defensive plays, and that’s important. But he’s on pace for 25 goals, which would be his worst total since his rookie season.
- Kopitar is 9th among Kings forwards in 5-on-5 G/60 (goals per 60 minutes of icetime), behind Moller, Williams, Parse, Sturm, Stoll, Simmonds, Brown and Smyth. He’s 2/100ths of a goal ahead of Loktionov.
- On the power-play, he’s 6th among Kings forwards in G/60. That sounds better, until you realize he’s last among the forwards who have scored on the PP at all. Everyone below Kopitar has played less than 50 minutes PP time all year. Kopitar leads the team, with 196 minutes.
- The Kings are 12-3 when Kopitar scores a goal.
- The OT goal is not really on Johnson if you ask me. I blame Smyth for not getting the puck in the zone, just a couple of seconds prior. But those things happen. Shouldn’t have gotten to OT in the first place.
- I just skimmed through several irate “trade Brown” comments over at LAKi. Although I myself wondered if that wouldn’t be a good idea, about a year ago, I’m not ready to sign that petition this season, just yet.
- I must remember, though, not to read his content-free post-game quotes.
- I’m not arguing for trading him. That seems a little panicky to me. But every time it comes up, and people protest that Brown is untouchable, that seems equally foolish. He is one of the four remaining non-Lombardi picks/acquisitions, the others being Kopitar, Quick and Parse.
- I thought Martinez looked especially good tonight. Could have scored, too, on that shot at the end of the second period (the second of the Kings’ two shots in that period).
- I’m glad Scuderi stopped the wrap-around with one second left. Put that in the file of plays to remember if the Kings make the playoffs by one point.
- I think if the Kings insist on scoring just one goal a game leading up to the trade deadline, things are going to get interesting.
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