Game 43: Red Wings 4, Kings 0

Sorry for the delay. Last game left such a bad taste in my mouth, that I didn't dare venture online to read about it. It wasn't until this morning that I poked around, and it was as negative as I thought.

How's this for an interesting stat: The Kings are 51-109-5 with 23 ties against teams defending a Stanley Cup championship, 15-54-1 with 12 ties against “Original Six” teams defending the title, and 5-7-1 with two ties against Detroit in those situations.

Since the game is a distant memory now, I'll forego the usual recap and just get to the stories.

• AP:  Conklin, Red Wings shut out Kings 4-0

• LA Times:  Kings lose to Detroit, 4-0, in lackluster effort

And so we now bid farewell to the Kings, not because they play their next three games on the road but because their season, for all intents, ended Thursday in a soulless and goalless loss to the Detroit Red Wings.

• Yahoo: Team report

The Kings, in desperate need of some offensive spark, once again rearranged their lines, but it did little good. The Kings have eight regulation goals in their last seven games, and four of those goals came in one game. On Thursday, coach Terry Murray went back to a first line of LW Patrick O’Sullivan, C Anze Kopitar and RW Dustin Brown, a line that had great success last season but has mostly fizzled this year. That line combined for 13 of the Kings’ 23 shots on goal—O’Sullivan had seven—but couldn’t generate any goals.

They said it

“Obviously we’ve been struggling out there for two weeks or so. It’s very disappointing. The season can go one way or another right now and that’s what’s happened with this organization in the past. Right around this time everything falls apart. Games start to get away from you and then the season is over.”—Kings winger Patrick O’Sullivan.

Looking through purple-hued goggles

• The Royal Half: DOA

January 15th, 2009 10:05pm. The day the playoffs died. Half Season Ticket Holder Buddy is giving the Los Angeles Kings till the end of this upcoming 3 game road trip before he throws the towel in... but I think any chance of making the playoffs in 2009 is done.

• Inside Hockey: Kings can't clip Wings

Defense continues to be a bit of a sore point. With Doughty missing, the pairings were Greene with O’Donnell, Harrold and Quincey, and Preissing and Gauthier. The first goal was, as has been seen many times this season, attributable to Gauthier losing his man. He gave the puck away to Kris Draper, who scooted around the net and shot. Maltby whacked the puck out of the air and in.

From the other side of the ice, the Detroit view

• Freep.com: Conklin, fourth line rock solid in shutout victory

• Winging it in Motown: Wings shutout Kings 4-0

• On the Wings: Wings 4, Kings 0

Kings-related news

• Daily News: Kings' Quincey making noise


Peeping the dailies