- Bright spots: Kyle Clifford … okay, what’s the point of Kevin Westgarth again?
- Alexei Ponikarovsky looks if anything even better since his return from injury.
- Alec Martinez … fast and confident. He needs more power-play time.
- Oscar Moller … I still say he will score 200 goals over the next ten years. In answer to people saying (in effect) “this is his last chance” — he’s 21. Had Cammalleri played an NHL game at this point in his life? I don’t think so.
- Michal Handzus … shot-blocking hero/genius.
- Dustin Brown … nice play on the Ryan Smyth goal, heads up. But why is he so often the fourth forward on the other team’s breakout? He makes a great first pass…to them.
- Drew Doughty … I thought he played a pretty dominant game, but: the penalty in OT? I don’t understand it. Is it lack of discipline (he just wants to hipcheck someone)? Frustration (not scoring, so…must hipcheck someone)? Loss of timing (head injury, now can’t judge distance or time)? That’s a penalty that crosses over from garden-variety stupid to monumentally stupid.
- Jonathan Quick … played a pretty great* game, made a couple of spectacular Gumby-boned stretchy saves. Kept us in it* for awhile there. Didn’t deserve* to lose.
*I searched around for an old instructional video clip showing (ideally) pee-wee goalies how to play the puck. Couldn’t find one. But I did find this, which is apropos of nothing but kind of funny: