After one period

By Rich Hammond on October 6, 2007 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |

Kings 1, Blues 0

Sorry for the delay on posting the first goal. It's fairly obvious that AEG doesn't see the complete value in funcitioning wireless internet.

Overall, a good first period for the Kings. There were some clear negatives. The middle of the perioid was rather sluggish on the offensive end. There were two sequences in which the Kings had one more player on the ice than the Kings. I would stop short of calling them ``power plays,'' however.

Other than that, there's not too much negative that can be said. Jonathan Bernier, once again, showed tremendous poise and was nearly flawless in making eight saves. He faced some pressure early but got a good look at the shots, and as a goalie that's about all you can ask for.

The Kings really got going after they scored their goal and finished the period strong over the final five minute, including a very solid penalty kill.

As said before, the highlight goes to Kopitar, who made one of his patented swoops down the right side and fed a perfect pass to Brown for the goal.

Forgot to mention the pregame introductions...I think the biggest ovations went to Bernier and Kopitar. Modry got about a 50-50 mix of cheers and boos.

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.