What could have been?

By Rich Hammond on February 18, 2007 9:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |

In the 12 games since Sean Burke arrived, the Kings have a goals-against average of just more than 2.3 in regulation. That's all games, not just games that Burke has started and/or completed. Now look at November, when the Kings lost eight of 13 games and really started to see things slip away. They lost games by scores of 4-3 (in overtime), 6-4, 7-3, 3-2 (shootout), 4-3, 6-3, 5-3 and 7-4. All of those games were winnable with good goaltending.

Of course, that's just one month. In October, when the Kings lost 10 of 14, they scored a total of 13 goals in their 10 losses. So it would have been a bad start, regardless of the goalie, but decent play in net could have at least kept the Kings from sinking to the bottom of the conference.

Mattias Norstrom missed today's game with the sprained knee he suffered on Saturday. I talked to Norstrom briefly as he walked out of the dressing room Saturday night and he had a bit of a limp but thought he'd be able to play today. For Norstrom to miss a game, that's really something. He had been 60-for-60 this season and since 1999-2000 he's missed 17 regular-season games out of a possible 553.

It's the Marc Crawford Reunion Tour this week, with Vancouver and Colorado coming to town.

J.P. Hoornstra writes about NHL and IHL hockey for the Los Angeles Newspaper Group. He welcomes any and all dialogue on the finer points of hockey. E-mail J.P. at jp.hoornstra
@inlandnewspapers.com.

Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews
.com.