Game 25: Oilers 5, Kings 4 (shooutout)

    But they are grinding through most games, determined if imprecise, occasionally better than the sum of their parts. That counts for something.
    Maybe not enough to get that playoff spot but enough to keep them close to the pack and make General Manager Dean Lombardi think seriously about upgrading the goaltending.

    "Definitely disappointing," Kings winger Dustin Brown said. "I think we know what to do, but we need to do it. It's three games in a row. That's not good enough. We're a young team, but that's no excuse, to be blowing leads, let alone three games in a row in crucial games, at home."

    The Kings, who entered the game as the top team in the NHL in terms of shots on goal against, allowed a season-high 44 shots on goal. The Kings also put 37 shots on the Oilers, and the 81 total shots was by far the highest total in a Kings game this season. The previous high was 63, when the Kings out-shot Toronto 33-30 Monday. The previous high for a Kings opponent this season was 41, recorded by San Jose in the Oct. 11 season opener, a 3-1 Sharks victory.

“We just came in (the locker room) and said, ‘There is a lot of game left.’ We didn’t really feel like we played that bad of a period to be down 3-0. I think that showed in the second period, when we came out and stuck to our game plan and put the work in and got rewarded.”
— Kings captain Dustin Brown, on what was said after the Kings trailed 3-0 in the first intermission.

Do you know who is a waste of space? John Zeiler. He played 4:23 and did absolutely nothing. We don't need two players who are going to play less than five minutes on the playing roster on the same night. Raitis Ivanans? You notice that monster of a man; he has a purpose. Zeiler? Waste. Of. Space.

I think that Dustin Brown could could bludgeon a defensemen with his stick as he's trying to deke around them, but as long as he kept his legs moving, the referee would call 2 min for holding the stick on the opposing team. How many penalties did he draw tonight simply by keeping his feet moving?

    There was an earthquake in Southern California during last night’s game between the Edmonton Oilers and the Los Angeles Kings at the Staples Center.
    Early reports registered it as 5.5 on the Richter scale, so it wasn’t just the shaky play of Kings goaltender Erik Ersberg.

    "He's sick on those things," said Oilers defenceman Steve Staios, who watched Garon do his thing, stopping Alex Frolov and Anze Kopitar easily before O'Sullivan kept it alive for the Kings.
    "Well, they got one on me ... he kind of surprised me with his move, by my glove and off the post, but any time your team scores two in a shootout, it's a nice cushion," said Garon, who finally gave up a shootout goal to a team other than the Vancouver Canucks. Ryan Kesler and Trevor Linden beat him last year.

    The standings say otherwise -- and so does common sense -- but Kings Coach Terry Murray said Friday that he believes his team can make the playoffs....
    Maybe his remarks after Friday's game-day skate were meant as a test to see how his players would react to the bar being set higher than any other Kings team has reached since the 2001-02 season.

    "I don't think there's any place in our game for talk like that," Tom Preissing, the Kings' union representative, said. "I think I know what he was trying to do. He obviously took it way too far. He should be punished, I think, which he has been."

    So... what's the point of all this? I don't honestly know. I'm so flabbergasted by the fact that Avery still seems to bother people. I find him boring. I find most players that shoot their mouths off to be tired and uninteresting. I don't read stories about them I don't watch interviews with them and in general I think they're self involved douchebags. Clearly I'm in the minority however. Despite all the tongue clucking and finger wagging "the great masses" seem to love so much they clearly can't stop watching. Charles Barkley might be the most popular figure in professional sports at the moment. This was a guy who's biggest impact on popular culture was "I am not a role model".