January 2008 Archives

Rob Blake scored seven minutes into the third period to break a 1-1 tie and Frolov added an empty netter. Moulson had his second goal in two games. The Kings had just two penalties and didn't allow a power play until late in the third period. LaBarbera had 28 saves.

Here's some AP quotes:

"Three points for us is a lot," Rob Blake said. "We understood the challenge at hand here coming on this type of a trip after the break. We had a good effort in Philly, and tonight we got the job done."

"You can't really look at the big picture," Jason LaBarbera said. "It's probably good for us to get out here and see something different and get away from the stuff we've seen a lot of this year. We've played well the first two games on this trip and hopefully we can just keep doing what we're doing."

"We know there is some sickness on that team right now and they battled like crazy," Kings coach Marc Crawford said. "We were really good tonight. We didn't give up much."

Kevin Dallman was loaned to Manchester for conditioning. He remains on the Kings 23-man roster and is likely to rejoin the team at some point during this trip. Looks like, coming back from his injury, they wanted to get him some more activity than he is getting now.

I can't give you guys the normal inside-the-locker-room access while the Kings are on this road trip, so I thought I'd see what else I can do. Rich talked about interviewing Manchester Monarchs coach Mark Morris before his promotion. With a lot of Monarchs players expected to finish the season with the Kings, I figured now would be a good time to look him up. If you have a question for Morris, post it here and I'll give it consideration.

Alexander Frolov made a bad turnover at the offensive blue line, Mike Richards took the puck and passed it inside to a charging Scott Hartnell. Hartnell was tangled up Lubomir Visnovsky and couldn't get his stick on the puck but it went off his skate and in as he tried to slide to a stop in front of the net with 28.5 seconds left in OT. The officials reviewed it and ruled there was no intentional kick. Unfortunate ending. The Kings were really dominated by Philadelphia in OT, but you have to feel good about their chances if they can get to a shootout.

Anze Kopitar scored his 20th goal of the season, tying his rookie output. Matt Moulson scored his fourth goal, and first since being called back up three games ago. Brian Willsie did play after missing five games with a sore back, so that could mean that Teddy Purcell won't rejoin the team for a while. Maybe he'll be brought up at the end of the trip if Dustin Brown is going to take off two games to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.

$1.2 million over two years (600k per). He's making $475,000 this season.

Forward Raitis Ivanans received a two-year contract extension from the Kings. The 29-year-old enforcer, in his second season with the team, had four points and 80 penalty minutes in 43 games entering tonight's game in Philadelphia despite missing time with a fractured cheekbone. Terms of the agreement were not announced, but I'll see what I can find out. The timing looks like a reward for his fight with George Parros of the Ducks on Thursday, though I'm sure it was in the works for longer. Not an Earth-shattering signing but Ivanans does serve an important role as the only King who can really fight.

Former Kings defenseman Jere Karalahti was charged Tuesday morning with smuggling amphetamines into Finland, according to the Associated Press. The 32-year-old, who has been playing hockey in Finland, was charged with smuggling nine pounds of amphetamines into the country and providing $29,500 for the smuggling operations. If found guilty, he could face six years in prison.

I'm sure this comes as little surprise to Kings fans. Karalahti left the NHL in 2002 after being suspended six months for his third violation of the league's substance-abuse policy. He was originally drafted by the Kings in the sixth round in 1993.

I had a story in today's paper on what to look for from the Kings after the break. For those who don't get the paper, it ran on the front page of the Daily News sports section -- the third front-page Kings story in the past six days. The Kopitar All-Star feature and the Ducks gamer also ran on the front. I believe we had three front-page Kings stories on the season before this stretch.

to rejoin the Kings for the eight-game road trip. Purcell has not been recalled. This could be because Lombardi is waiting until after Purcell participated in the AHL All-Star game Monday. That makes sense. But, you never know, it could mean the Kings think Willsie is ready to play and will go that route. Adds some intrigue to tomorrow.

I had a feature today on Anze Kopitar and the reaction to his All-Star selection in his homeland.

TSN reports Crawford will testify in court that he yelled at Todd Bertuzzi to get off the ice before his attack on Steve Moore back in that 2004 game when Crawford coached Vancouver.

Though Crawford indicated they would likely be recalled for the eight-game trip that starts in Philadelphia on Tuesday. This would seem to be to get them some games/practices during the All-Star break. I guess their play of late -- both had nice assists Thursday -- didn't deserve a few days off.

Not a bad way to go into the break, winners of five of seven and with a big victory over your rivals.

``Any time you beat a team like that and a rival, it’s huge,’’ Jason LaBarbera said. ``It’s a great way to go into the break. We can enjoy ourselves for the next couple of days.’’

Kopitar had his 19th goal of the season, one short of the 20 he had as a rookie.

``We’re playing much better and I think everyone sees that,’’ Kopitar said. ``We aren’t giving up a lot of goals. We are limiting the chances we give up and we’re creating offense better than we did before.’’

Teddy Purcell got his first NHL point on a sweet, backhanded pass from the left boards to Derek Armstrong in front of the net for the second goal.

``Yeah, that was pretty nice,'' Purcell said. ``It was a great pass from Modry on the breakout. We had a 2-on-1 and it was a good job by Army letting me know I had some time there and he was going to net. I just made a pass and he made a nice goal.''

Matt Moulson also had a point, helping to set up Alexander Frolov for the third goal of the game -- the one that knocked out Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

``We really like the contributions of these young guys that have come in,’’ Marc Crawford said. ``I think our players are getting more excited to have youth in our group.’’

Crawford said Purcell and Moulson are likely to stay with the team for the eight-game road trip that follows the break.

``Right now we have so many injuries that I don’t think it's a question,'' Crawford said. ``It doesn’t look like Cammalleri will be back immediately. It doesn’t look like Nagy will even go on the trip. Willsie is probably the closest but I think he still may be a little bit away. So I suspect those guys will continue on with us. I don’t know if they will go back and play some games for the Monarchs here now during the break. They have played well. I thought their contribution ton was good on the scoreboard but particularly good just overall.''

I caught Nagy coming out of the locker room and asked him about the injury. He said it occurred during the game at Calgary and he felt a twinge immediately then woke up the next day with it extremely sore.

``I thought it would be better the last four or five days but it's not getting better so I'm staying here,'' Nagy said. ``Hopefully the next couple of days it will be much better because it's getting frustrating. It's like a detachment of a nerve. There's a burning that goes all the way to my left side. I've never felt anything like it before. I had knee surgery and that didn't bother me like this one.''

Click the continuation to read Crawford's full post-game quotes.

including a talk with Purcell about his first NHL point, an update on how long Purcell and Moulson may be, an interview with Nagy about his injury and, of course, plenty of happy quotes from the big win over the Ducks. I'll have it up after I finish writing my gamer.

I'm reminded of earlier this season when Raitis Ivanans expressed dislike for Chris Pronger and the way Pronger attacked Michal Handzus when Ivanans was injured. This is the first Kings-Ducks game since where Ivanans has been healthy enough to fight.

Crawford shook up the lines a little bit. Moulson is playing with Armstrong and Frolov on the second line. Calder is down with Handzus and Purcell.

So says Matt McHale, who preceded me on the Kings beat. As part of the Daily News' expanded and (hopefully) improved online content, he will be writing periodic commentaries on some of the bigger issues in the Southern California sports scene. Today, he tackles the question of whether Rob Blake should be traded. You can probably guess the answer by the headline...

Kings' Blake needs to go

Matjaz is going to coach the Slovenian national team in three tournaments. After joining Anze in Atlanta for the All-Star game, he is heading to Europe for one of the tournaments. He will rejoin Anze in Los Angeles Feb. 18. When the other tournaments arrive, he will again go to Europe for around two weeks each time. But he will continue living here.

The Vancouver Province had a quote from Ducks general manager Brian Burke on Kings prospect Oscar Moller.

``His hockey sense is terrific and I think the sky's the limit,'' Burke said. ``His skating has to improve a bit and he has to get bigger, but what great hockey sense and what a high battle level.

``If he plays for L.A., yeah, I won't be a fan of his.''

Someone recently e-mailed to the Kings Insider on the official Kings Web site that he and his girlfriend had named their daughter Anjae, after Anze Kopitar.

I asked Kopitar what he thought of that, and here was his response: ``That's actually pretty funny. If they want to do it, it's fine with me. They must be really passionate Kings fans.''

Kopitar said his first name isn't very common in his homeland of Slovenia, but that he knew of a couple other people with the name growing up.

Click below to read the transcript. He talks about the need to get off to a good start on the road trip, last night's game, Matt Moulson and the pairing of Moulson with Teddy Purcell.

Teddy Purcell and Matt Moulson had a reunion of sorts Tuesday. The two played on the same line to start the season in Manchester, though the line was broken up when Moulson was called up for 12 games. Now the two are back playing together with the Kings.

``We had some really good chemistry down in Manchester,'' Purcell said. ``It's nice to be reunited with him. It shows our work down there has been noticed. I thought we had some pretty good chances early. Unfortunately, we couldn’t bury one but I thought we had some pretty good chemistry.''

Moulson said he felt more comfortable in last night's game than when he was up earlier.

``I probably should have had three goals tonight alone,'' Moulson said after the game. ``I just need to bury my chances and take advantage of this opportunity.''

Brad Stuart's name has been popping up in a lot of trade scenarios with the trade deadline a month away. Here's what he had to say about it ...

``I went through it last year. Any time you're an unrestricted free-agent-to-be, your name is going to pop up no matter your situation. I don't really worry about it too much at this point. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

``I like it here. It's a great place to play. It's tough when you don't win. That can make any situation miserable. But I don't think it's been miserable. It's just been a tough year. This is a great organization with fans that are looking for a winning team to really get behind. We just haven't been able to do that this year. But I like it here.

``Any time you get a chance to go to a good team and have a chance to win, that's good. You see it every year. I haven't really thought about that. I'm just kind of focused on what we need to do here to gather some wins. Anything else is out of my hands.''

Alexander Frolov said he never fully healed from the right groin injury that kept him out 11 games in November and December.

``It still keeps me from doing some moves and I can feel it on some turns,'' Frolov said. ``Some days it's worse than others.''

Frolov, who started the season with a strained left groin, said he has only felt healthy for a couple games between injuries and doesn't expect to feel that way again this season.

``It's something that is going to take months of rest to fully heal,'' Frolov said. ``I just have to play through it for now. In the offseason, I'll do all the treatment and try to get it fixed.''

Here are Marc Crawford's thoughts following Tuesday night's loss to Detroit:

The opinion in the locker room seemed to be that the Kings did well to limit Detroit's chances but the Red Wings did well to take advantage of what little they got.

``We made maybe three or four mistakes and they scored on two of them,’’ Dustin Brown said. ``They’re one of those teams that have the ability to find a way to win games, and that’s what makes them one of the best teams in the league.’’

This may be true, but it kind of overlooks that the Kings didn't get anything going offensively. The Kings did get off to a good start with seven shots on goal before the Red Wings had one. Maybe if they converted on one of those, the game would have gone differently.

``That’s a team you really need to get a lead on if you’re a team like ours,’’ Crawford said. ``We didn’t. We made one mistake in the second period and they ended up scoring on us. Down two goals, they really locked it up and checked us fairly effectively the last half of the game.’’

With his third shutout of the season, Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood passed former Kings goalie Rogie Vachon for 15th on the NHL's all-time win list for the position.

The Kings got the first seven shots on goal of the period but Detroit scored the first goal, with Tomas Holmstrom hitting a one-timer off a nice centering pass from Pavel Datsyuk. There were so many cheers in Staples Center that I had to double-check which goal light was going off.

Detroit has the best record in the NHL with 74 points, and the Kings the worst with 40 points. But the Red Wings will be playing without All-Star forward Henrik Zetterberg, who has a back injury. I'm interested in seeing Purcell for the first time. Here's the early lines for the Kings:

Brown-Kopitar-O'Sullivan
Frolov-Armstrong-Calder
Purcell-Handzus-Moulson
Giuliano-Thornton-Ivanans

Anze Kopitar said his father, Matjaz, will return to Slovenia to resume coaching after joining him in Atlanta for the All-Star Game. Anze has had his whole family around this season. His younger brother, Gasper, plays for the Junior Kings Midget AAA 16-and-under team. Gasper had been going to Mira Costa High but will begin home schooling next week. Anze's mother is going to stay behind to take care of Gasper, so Anze will still get her home cooking.

By the way, Gasper was at practice Monday and he looks just like Anze.

Jeff Giuliano has been up with the Kings for 20 games now, which means he must be doing something right. His numbers are nothing to look at. He has one assist and a minus-5. But he's playing on an energy and/or checking line where offense isn't expected. The Kings previousy tried Gabe Gauthier in the role and he didn't pan out because he is more of an offensive player than a grinder like Giuliano.

Here is what Crawford says about Giuliano: ``He's played a little bit of a checking role. Jeff helped us in the PK department and with his skating. We’d like to see him be very trustworthy in the d-zone, be strong positionally and be able to shut people down. That’s the role he will hopefully fulfill. He’s not a big guy but he does have good strength. He’s not here to be an offensive dynamo. He hasn't been an offensive dynamo at any level. He's very conscientious and an attention-to-detail type of player.''

The forward had three goals in 12 games up with the Kings previously this season. He has 31 points in 31 games in Manchester.

It looks like Teddy Purcell will be up with the Kings at least two more games with the rash of injuries at forward. He played in all three games on the Canada trip, averaging nearly 12 minutes of ice time. While he has yet to get a point, he did come close to scoring with shots that hit the post and the crossbar.

``The chances are coming and sooner or later one’s going to fall in,'' Purcell said. ``Every game I felt more and more comfortable. I think I’m holding my own out there, and hopefully I can keep it going.''

``He played his two best games in the two wins,'' Crawford said. ``He’s a fraction away from contributing offensively. He's a good playmaker, good size, good speed, looks like he’s going to be a very good player. He’s an exciting player. He complemented and gave us a threat in that line with Handzus and when he played with Armstrong he looked really good.''

I asked a couple of vets what they thought of Purcell as well.

``He’s played very well for us,'' Rob Blake said. ``You can see he’s gifted player with good hands. He’ll find the net. He had a couple really good chances in Edmonton early and I thought he played well in Vancouver also. He’s a big guy. You can see how he’s had success at the other levels.''

``There's a reason why he's had such success this year in the AHL,'' Cammalleri said. ``He's a crafty player with good instincts. I like his game.''

Last week, Red Wings defender Chris Chelios said this of Rob Blake in an interview on a Detroit radio station: "He's in a situation there where there's just no light at the end of the tunnel and he's lost his drive right now. I've been there. I talked to him last time we played him, and he would love to come here."

Blake's response: "I don’t know if that’s exactly what was said (between he and Chelios), so I’ll leave it at that."

Blake said he wasn't upset at all with Chelios for making the comments. When I asked if there's any truth to him losing his drive, he gave a long ``Well ...,'' then said he was still trying and he didn't know any more he can say about that.

I wanted to add in that Blake said he hadn't heard about any comments Chelios made. I read him the quote.

Nagy has a neck injury and is doubtful to play this week. That makes three forwards out in Cammalleri, Nagy and Willsie. The Kings are expected to make a transaction later today. The name I'm hearing is Matt Moulson.

Cammalleri was on the ice for most of practice in a red jersey but is not close to returning. I don't expect him back until after the All-Star break.

``He skated pretty hard today but he still isn't shooting or passing,'' Crawford said. ``I think he's doubtful for this week but he's still improving. The trainers told me today that, with the type of injury he’s got, it's not uncommon to reach the fifth week as we are now or even go into the sixth week. There hasn’t been a lot of visible improvement. It has been a slow process.''

Cammalleri has gotten on the ice a lot the past two weeks, but he's limited in what he can do.

``I tell you one thing, when I come back I’ll be in great shape,'' Cammalleri said. ``It's just one of those injuries that takes some time to heal. I'm trying to do whatever I can without disrupting the healing process.''

Willsie came out on the ice and skated around at the end of practice, the first time he's been on the ice since hurting his back in the Jan. 12 game against Dallas. It sounds like he's shooting for returning the first game after the All-Star break.

``Last week I hoped it would be a day or two but, with a back injury, the more you do everything tightens up and it can cause it to regress,'' Willsie said. ``I felt pretty good on the ice and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day than today. We can always shoot for Thursday's game but it's a weird situation with the All-Star Game coming up, so if Thursday doesn’t work out then we've always got until next Tuesday.''

Dallman is available and Crawford mentioned the possibility of playing him up front.

Yes, the rumors are true... I'm leaving the Kings beat to try out for a spot on the roster as a goalie. I figure if they paid Roman Cechmanek a couple million, I might be worth $500,000 or so. I need to improve my rebound control.

Actually, I have gone corporate. For those of you who have to deal with early-morning alarm clocks and idiots on the freeway, I now completely sympathize. For those of you who ARE the idiots on the freeway, please don't take it personally when I curse loudly in the direction of your car.

As Matt said, I'm now deputy sports editor of the Daily News. And while that sounds a bit too Barney Fife-like for my tastes, it's actually an honor, one that I was humbled to accept. It was something that was neither planned nor expected, and it's a great opportunity, a chance to have a bigger impact on the Daily News ``organ-eye-zation.'' In myself and sports editor Gene Warnick, you have two big proponents of hockey at the Daily News. In fact, one of my first acts on the job was to ask Matt to write a Kings feature for the front page next week.

I won't be leaving completely. My new job title comes with the mandate to improve online content, and the Kings blog is certainly a major part of that. My challenge is now not to cover the team on a day-to-day basis but to bring better content in all areas. Hopefully, with luck and cooperation, that will mean more things like Q&As, videos and more interactive things. I'll be working on that, and everyone is encouraged to e-mail me with thoughts and suggestions.

But it's time to officially hand over the blog to Matt. I will miss covering the Kings greatly. I've covered everything, and there's nothing better than hockey. Matt will do a fine job with the blog. I know you have high standards, and you should. But Matt is well ahead of where I was this time last year, and he has a couple company-enforced disadvantages that I didn't have to deal with. Even so, I have every confidence that Matt will continue to give you the best Kings coverage of any reporter in the area. Those of you who were here for the humble beginnings of this blog remember how awful it once was. Ask Gann Matsuda, for instance. It was rarely updated and not very useful. It found its stride, and it was the encouragement of all you readers that made me want to do more and more. I ask you to continue giving Matt that same encouragement.

I just looked it up. I had my first Kings story published on April 17, 2000. The headline: ``Fiset will remain as starter.'' Well, the more things change... Those (almost) eight years went by really fast and forgive me for the sappy nostalgia but I feel like I need to thank some people. Communications managers Michael Altieri and Jeff Moeller have fielded more calls from me than they probably want to remember. They've always been highly professional and, more importantly, good friends and good people. Same goes for Mike Kalinowski, Stephanie Krauss, Lee Callans and Jeremy Zager, who have provided invaluable help at different times over the years. Thanks to Dean Lombardi, Dave Taylor, Marc Crawford and Andy Murray, and all of their staffs, for always being so accessible and helpful...to Bob Miller, Jim Fox, Nick Nickson, Daryl Evans and Bob Borgen for all the great conversation and insight...to Luc Robitaille, who always returns calls and always has something fun and interesting to say...to the players, all of them, for being so easy to deal with. They're far and away the most down-to-earth pro athletes in the world...to the behind-the-scenes staff, guys like Pete Demers, Peter Millar, Bill Gurney and Dana Bryson, just to name four of many, have made coming to the rink fun. I'm sure I forgot some people. it's early.

Most importantly, thanks to you, the readers. In the office, our online people still reference ``The Jack Johnson Day,'' the day Johnson signed, I blogged about it extensively and thousands of you read it. Since then, it's been a wild ride. Your support has been astounding and I'll never be able to thank you enough. I'll be around. In fact, I'll be at Thursday's game, so yell up to the press box if you happen to see me. But this is enough babbling for now. I'll let Matt get back to talking about important things...

Some of you have been wondering where Rich has been lately. He was promoted to deputy sports editor at the Daily News. I don't know if he'll be around here much anymore. While we'll all miss his input on the blog, it can't be bad for future coverage as the team improves to have another editor who appreciates the Kings.

Pretty good road trip for the Kings with two wins in three games. They beat a likely playoff team tonight. The Kings raced out to a 3-0 lead with goals from Dustin Brown (team-leading 24th), Scott Thornton and Jack Johnson. The Canucks scored twice, inluding a shorthanded goal, to make the Kings worry heading into the third. But Alexander Frolov gave the team a little cushion and the Kings held on behind 46 saves from Jason LaBarbera, who made up for last night's bad game by getting first star. The Kings managed to win despite being outshot 46-24.

Not exactly a happy 28th birthday for Jason LaBarbera. He allows five goals and is pulled after two periods. The Kings were outshot 18-6 in the first period. Derek Armstrong got the lone goal for the Kings. Daymond Langkow had a hat trick for Calgary. The three-game winning streak is over.

The next issue of The Hockey News has this message for the Kings, with draft prospects Steven Stamkos and John Tavares pictured in their Canadian team uniforms.

Many of you have already seen this. But, since it's a slow day, I wanted to make sure everyone got to read this column by Tom Hoffarth that ran in Sunday's Daily News on an autistic girl going to her first Kings game.

We hardly knew ye, huh? Peter Harrold spent one game inactive with the big club and he is sent back down. I suppose this means that Dallman will be ready to serve in a reserve role beginning Friday. I don't know why Dean wouldn't have just called up Klemm if he wanted a one-game emergency backup.

Brown, O'Sullivan and Visnovsky scored for the Kings in a 3-1 victory over Edmonton. The Kings led 3-0 before Edmonton got its goal late. Yesterday's callup Teddy Purcell saw his first NHL action. He took three shots in 12:26 of ice time. Peter Harrold was inactive. Kopitar had two more assists. LaBarbera made 32 saves. The Oilers had just three shots in the first period. Nice 60-minute effort from the Kings.

Jack Johnson was named one of four defenseman for the Western Conference squad of the YoungStars Game. He'll have to exchange that plane ticket out to see his girlfriend in Minnesota and head out to Atlanta instead for All-Star Weekend. Patrick O'Sullivan did not make the team. He's probably not too torn up. His take on it yesterday seemed to be he was fine either way, he just wanted to find out so he could make plans. Sam Gagner of Edmonton, Patrick Kane of Chicago, Peter Mueller of Phoenix and David Perron of St. Louis were chosen as the forwards over O'Sullivan. Looks like they've changed the name of the event from YoungGuns to YoungStars. Must be some PC thing.

A Kings representative said Lombardi declined my interview request but said to tell me that the call-ups from Manchester were because the team needed extra bodies for the three-game trip to western Canada. That the moves were necessitated by injuries and nothing else. Of course, this doesn't answer the question as to why he decided it was time to see the younger prospects instead of the older guys he had been turning to in these situations. However, it does seem to indicate that the recall of Harrold doesn't mean there is an imminent defenseman trade.

The rosters for this year's YoungGuns Game during All-Star weekend are expected to be announced tomorrow. Jack Johnson and Patrick O'Sullivan are candidates to go for the Kings. Both are a little antsy to find out, so they can at least make their plans. If Johnson is chosen, he will have to cancel his plans to visit his girlfriend, Sarah, in Minnesota. He already has a plane ticket. He and Sarah have been dating on-and-off since middle school.

``I think it would be cool to be there and see some of the big all-stars,'' Johnson said. ``I'd try to be behind the scenes because I'm one of the young guys, but I'd try to watch it and take in what I can.''

Johnson turned 21 on Sunday. He said he spent the night with family. His parents and brother came in from Michigan for Christmas and stayed for the homestand so they'd be around for his birthday. He had a home-cooked meal and a Bud Light, his first beer of course, to celebrate.

Anze Kopitar participated in the YoungGuns game last year and this season is in the real game.

Looks like Dean Lombardi decided it was finally time to give the young guys a try. Dean is on a plane to Edmonton, but I'll see if I can get a comment from him later in the day.

Teddy Purcell leads Manchester with 53 points and selected as a starter for the Canadian AHL All-Star team. Peter Harrold is first among AHL defensemen with 38 points and was named to the USA AHL All-Star team.

Michael Cammalleri and Kevin Dallman came on the ice together and wearing red jerseys with about 15 minutes left in practice. They handled the puck and did some drills on the far end, away from the other players, with assistant coaches. Dallman looks farther along than Cammalleri. Dallman was shooting and his only real limitation is that it's tough to push off hard on the right foot. Cammalleri was passing the puck around but had trouble putting any speed on his shot. They both participated in wind sprints with the rest of the team at the conclusion of practice. Dallman is out against Edmonton but could be ready to play against Calgary. He plans to participate fully in the skate tomorrow and the practice(s) before the Calgary game. He is wearing a protective piece of graphite over his right skate that should give him some confidence that he won't take a shot in the same spot, and he says it doesn't limit is maneuverability at all.

It sounds questionable as to whether Cammalleri will play on this trip, but he will go.

``I'm trying push it and get back as soon as can,'' Cammalleri said. ``I hope to play as soon as I can, so I go on this trip with all the optimism and we'll see what happens.''

``Cammalleri still a little ways away,'' Crawford said. ``We’re hoping he has a couple days where he starts to feel a lot better. He's doing active-release therapy and acupuncture to try to speed things along. He's attacking it as well as he can but it’s a tedious, time-consuming rehabilitation. I know nobody wants be back more than Mike.''

Brian Willsie woke up Sunday morning with a sore lower back. He wasn't in discomfort during the Dallas game and can't point to any specific play where he got hurt. He just woke up with the injury. Willsie didn't practice today. He might be able to go tomororow in Edmonton but it's tough to tell at this point.

``I hope I wake up tomorrow morning and it feels great,'' Willsie said. ``Some injuries are a little more straightforward but, with a back, I don’t know.''

As a precaution, the Kings are likely to call up a player from Manchester later today. Jon Klemm could be back quicker than expected. However, Crawford was talking as if a younger player was possible.

Believe it or not, these are the first back-to-back wins at home for the Kings since Oct. 27.

``You can look at it any way you want but the bottom line is we got a win today and we got a win our last game, so we're going in the right direction,'' Patrick O'Sullivan said. ``It’s a process with our team. We're trying to learn, trying to experience everything it takes for a team to get better.''

Despite all the struggles this season, the Kings have split six games against Dallas and won three of five against San Jose -- the two top teams in the Pacific Division.

``I think when we know we have to be at our best, we’ve got the ability to raise our game to that level,'' Crawford said. ``It’s a sign of immaturity when you’re not there. We’re going to concentrate on singular challenges here in making sure the group stays entirely focused the way we have against good teams.''

The Kings survived an early 2-0 deficit and three 5-on-3 situations.

``Most of the year, being two goals down, right away a lot of us were being negative and feeling sorry for ourselves,'' LaBarbera said. ``Unfortunately you're not going to get very far feeling like that. We did a good job responding, being positive and being confident in ourselves. Confidence is a big thing in athletics. Sometimes you get down two goals and lose confidence. We just have to build off that mindset and hopefully keep it up.''

It was looking a little like the Nashville game early when the Stars scored twice in 16 seconds in the first period, but the Kings didn't give up this time.

``I've got to give the guys credit,'' Crawford said. ``They're the ones who dug their heels in and said, `Hey, this not what we're going to be.' We've talked lately about not letting our work ethic be questioned ever. We make mistakes and we'll continue striving to limit our mistakes, but we’ll never accept not having a strong work ethic. I thought the guys dug in their heels and worked hard to a man today.''

LaBarbera made a great, diving save with 8:34 remaining to keep the game tied. That could have been a dagger. It reminded me of the Calgary game when the Kings came back from a 2-0 deficit to take a 4-3 lead but the Flames tied the game back up again with 6:55 remaining and then grabbed the lead 1:50 later. This time, LaBarbera came up big to get the game into overtime.

It caught my attention when Frolov and not O'Sullivan was in the shootout. Nothing wrong to go with Frolov. They're both solid options. Crawford said after the game that he probably should have gone with O'Sullivan but that he thought Frolov was playing a good game. The point is moot, because O'Sullivan ended up getting his chance anyway and took advantage.

``I don’t mind batting cleanup,'' O'Sullivan said. ``Turco is an unpredictable goalie so I kind of had a plan of what I was going to do out there. That is one of the moves I've been doing my whole life on breakaways, so it worked out for me.''

Here's what LaBarbera had to say about O'Sullivan's goal: I see him in practice everyday and know what his moves are like. That move he has is tough. I know he's doing it in practice and I still can't stop him.''

The Kings have tomorrow off. They practice at 11 a.m. Monday before heading out to Edmonton.

Patrick O'Sullivan scores the game-winner on the fourth shootout attempt. LaBarbera makes a big save to end it and is the first star of the game. Notes and quotes from locker room to come.

and it will probably be over with before this post actually goes up.

Kings had a power play with four minutes left that went nowhere.

The Kings face consecutive two-man disadvantages because of penalties and pay. The goal looked like another one of those flukes, though. The scorer gave it to Matt Niskanen on the slap shot. But it looked like to me like the shot went off Modry, then off Antti Miettinen before fluttering over LaBarbera. Might be a scoring change coming. LaBarbera redeemed himself minutes later with a diving glove save to deny Jeff Halpern on a rush.

Rob Blake scorches another slap shot and Kopitar, skating underneath, is able to just get a piece of it and deflect it in on the move. Nearing end of second period.

Looks like the Kings aren't going to give up in this one. They scored twice in a minute. Patrick O'Sullivan came out of the penalty box at the perfect time to create a 2-on-1 with Frolov, then fed Frolov for the goal. Soon after, Scott Thornton threw in a shot on the rush and the long rebound went right to Derek Armstrong to tee it up on the one-timer for his fourth goal of the season. 2-2 game midway through the first.

And the Kings are already down 2-0. Simultaneous penalties to Jack Johnson for high sticking and Jeff Giuliano for hooking put the Kings in a two-man hole. LaBarbera and the defense did a good job for most of the penalty kill until, with three seconds left, LaBarbera slid to his left to block a shot from Louis Eriksson only to have Eriksson hold up and show some good vision to find Jeff Halpern camping wide open on the other side 3:20 into the game. Sixteen seconds later, Eriksson scored on a wrap around. Looks like the Kings are back to their old ways.

On the Staples jumbo screen, they just gave today's players choices for the song to play later in the game. Dustin Brown wants to hear ``My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit. Had to laugh at that. Perfect choice for the Kings.

Defenseman Jon Klemm was sent back down to Manchester. He had a very eventful and productive stay in his 15 days up with the big club, playing 10 minutes in one game -- the debacle against Nashville.

I posted the column from Paul Oberjuerge a couple days ago. Here is the full transcript from his interview with general manager Dean Lombardi.

Here's what Crawford had to say about the Kings' play after taking a 5-0 lead Thursday. They were outshot 44-13 by Toronto in the final two periods, though the Kings held on for a 5-2 victory.

``It is much easier to get chances and get shots when the other team has the foot off the gas pedal. We don’t want to be unconcerned about breakdowns in play but I think that’s just the nature of the beast. We had only given up five scoring chances 34 minutes into the game. You never want to make light of anything but you've got to use common sense as well. No one was making a story out of the fact we outshot and outchanced the Nashville Predators two nights before by a wide margin in the third period. We were awful. We know we were.''

Kevin Dallman put away the walking boot today and skated prior to practice, the first time he has been on the ice since fracturing his right foot Dec. 22 against Nashville. He will make the trip to Canada, though Crawford said he is still 7-10 days away from playing.

Michael Cammalleri also is expected to make the trip. The Kings play in Edmonton on Tuesday.

``We still don’t know when he will play but he has improved to the point where we will bring him on the Canadian trip with us,'' Crawford said. ``He still needs to practice before he plays.''

Most of you read the Jack Johnson story I posted yesterday from the Toronto Star on how he was going to meet with a 9-year-old kid from Toronto who plays youth hockey despite having cerebral palsy. Jack met the kid yesterday after the morning skate, talked to him and his father a bit and gave him a signed stick. Here's what Jack had to say about the experience ...

``I was just happy to try to put a smile on his face. He's playing at a high level, up a year, and it's remarkable for him to be doing that. I couldn’t be happier for him.

``I remember when I was little kid wearing someone else’s jersey and looking up to someone else. It's pretty special to see someone else doing that for me.''

Rob Blake is slated to play his 780th career game as a King tomorrow, which would tie Mattias Norstrom for the most games played by a defenseman in team history.

Ironically, Norstrom passed Blake when he claimed the record in 2005. Blake left the Kings in 2001 and spent over four years in Colorado before returning to the Kings last season.

``It's kind of come full circle,'' said Blake, who downplayed the record. ``It just means they haven't had a defenseman here very long. It's a lot of games, but there's been many guys who have had longer marks around the league.''

Norstrom will be in town to see his mark tied. He was traded late last season to Dallas, coincidentally the Kings’ opponent at Staples Center tomorrow.

Blake, 38, scored his fourth goal of the season Thursday to go along with 18 assists. He has 218 goals and 475 assists in his career, which started with the Kings in the 1989-90 season.

One thing he doesn't want to talk about is how many games he has left as a King. With the Kings expected to be sellers at the trading deadline, Blake is a prime candidate for trade as a veteran defenseman with playoff experience who doesn't fit into the Kings' rebuilding phase. He was quoted last month by the Denver Post as saying he would consider waiving his no-trade clause to go to the right team.

Despite some struggles coming back from a hip injury, Blake has played well of late and helped to bring along 20-year-old Jack Johnson, whom he now pairs with on the defensive end.

``I want to compliment him on how he’s played,'' Kings coach Marc Crawford said. ``I think he’s been remarkable, especially the last two months of the season and certainly the last month. He's one guy who’s been a shining example. I love the mentoring role he’s taking with Jack Johnson. … He’s going to benefit a great deal for having played with Rob Blake.''

Slightly different atmosphere in the locker room after this game than the last one. This time, the players were actually there. I don't remember the last time I saw Dustin Brown sitting at his locker after a game.

Crawford and the players talked yesterday about erasing Tuesday's game from their memory, but it was obvious they didn't. They came out using those bad feelings to spark them to probably their best first period of the season. Not only did they strike first for the first time in nine games but they lit the goal up four times.

``That was what we were looking for, a strong start and to play with some passion and play within the structure,’’ Anze Kopitar said. ``That’s one thing we’ve got to try every game, to come out of the gate like that.’’

Everyone seemed more determined out there. Brown and others were crashing the net and getting rebounds. Blake and the defense were solid and throwing hits.

``We had some great performances from our defensive core,'' Crawford said. ``Rob Blake looks like he is 28 years old right now. He’s playing with lots of heart and desire, especially playing with young Jack Johnson. They make a nice pair.''

As the game wore on, LaBarbera proved to be the most determined of them all to make up for his performance in getting yanked early out of Tuesday's 7-0 loss to Nashville. LaBarbera made a career-high 48 saves, including some key stops to extinguish a two-man shortage late in the second period.

``We knew we had to come out with a purpose,’’ LaBarbera said. ``We definitely had a lackluster effort the other night and that’s not who we are or who we want to be. We felt like, as a group, we let each other down. So we wanted come out as a team and come out hard.’’

The Kings were outshot 44-13 in the final two periods, but most of that came after they took a 5-0 lead so I think we can overlook that for now.

The most important thing to come out of this game is that I'm no longer a curse to the team. The Kings broke their six-game losing streak with me in attendance.

``We're not kidding anybody,'' Crawford said. ``We're a long way from being back in a playoff race. Right now we just have to look at games as individual challenges. I'm sorry to say that’s where we’re at but that is where we're at, and tonight's game was a great response from our guys.''

Not the best finish, but a win. The Kings have been outshot badly since the first period.

``Last night, Dean Lombardi called me and told me the news. I was having dinner and the phone call was a pleasant surprise for sure. Once I got the call, the first person I wanted to tell was my dad and I wanted to do that right away. Obviously, he too was very excited. I'm sure that when the news hits over in Slovenia, it will be covered very well.

``This experience will be a lot of fun. Last year, I saw a glimpse of it while playing in the Young Guns game, which in itself was pretty exciting. But this will be even better.''

Kings up 5-1 at the end of two. LaBarbera made some nice saves as the Kings killed 5-on-3 near the end of the period.

The Maple Leafs yanked Raycroft but that didn't do any good. Rob Blake pulverized a slap shot top shelf past backup Vesa Toskala. This game is looking familiar, though the Kings aren't.

So really, do you believe in miracles? It looks like the Kings found a team colder than they are. Dustin Brown scored twice on power plays to bring his team-leading goal total to 22. In between, Frolov came around the net, losing his footing, but regained his balance and made a quick turn and shot past Toronto goalie Andrew Raycroft.

Bet you guys wish you could be watching this on television.

Because the Kings scored first, and that might qualify. First time in nine games that the Kings have lit the goal light first. Michal Handzus made a centering feed from behind the net to Calder, who grabbed the puck in traffic and knocked in a backhand. LaBarbera has lasted seven minutes, too! Now let's see if this post can go through in less than seven minutes. That would be a true miracle.

LaBarbera is back in goal. Let's hope he lasts more than seven minutes.

LaBarbera is back in goal. Let's hope he lasts more than seven minutes.

Anze Kopitar was named to the Western Conference roster for the NHL All-Star game, the first of what should be many selections for the 20-year-old forward in his second year. He played in the YoungStars game last year as a rookie. Kopitar leads the Kings with 40 points (17 goals, 23 assists). I'll try to get a quote from him on the selection before tonight's game.

Here's an interesting quote from Rob Blake on Jarome Iginla, elected as a starter for the West, who called the Calgary forward the best player in the NHL: ``He’s not just a goal scorer. He’s powerful, he’s tough. He’s the ultimate all-around player.''

If you're looking to get your mind off the losing for a bit, check out this story from the Toronto Star. It says that, before tonight's game, Jack Johnson is scheduled to meet a 9-year-old kid who is playing hockey at an elite level despite having cerebral palsy. The story says Desmond Feher-Hill is in Los Angeles to visit his aunt and will attend tonight's game. He became a Johnson fan because his father is a supporter of Michigan, where Johnson played collegiate hockey.

Paul Oberjuerge from our sister paper in San Bernardino came to the game last night and did a column on the state of the Kings. He talked to Lombardi for the column. Check it out if you can stomach more pop-ups.

The players were late getting on the ice because of a 15-minute, closed-door meeting. Crawford said he was the only one to speak at the meeting, and his message seemed to be for everyone to erase Tuesday's debacle from their memory.

``We have to move forward from last night,'' Crawford said. ``That game was not us. We know how we have to play, the effort we have to give and how we have to prepare to get that effort. That’s what we concentrated on today.

``I told players let's just control the things that we can control. The things we can control certainly start and end with effort, then we control our habits and the structure in which we play. That is the answer. It is the answer when you play well and it's definitely the answer when you play poorly.''

The players echoed Crawford's sentiments to forget about Tuesday's 7-0 loss to Nashville and move on to Thursday's game against Toronto.

``If nothing else, I think we talked about being committed to our team and how we need to play,'' Patrick O'Sullivan said. ``We really have played well since Christmas with the exception of last night. We kind of got away from what we’ve been doing, so we’ve got to get back to that and I think we’ll be fine.''

It almost seemed like a training camp with the players forced to do wind sprints from around one goal to around the other at the conclusion of practice.

``We hadn't done anything like that in a while,'' O'Sullivan said. ``I don’t think it necessarily had anything to do with the game but, at the same time, we had a hard practice today and I think that’s good for us to forget about yesterday, come to rink today and work as hard as we could.''

``Obviously, we got to get back to basics and part of basics is working hard,'' Dustin Brown said. ``I think that’s what today's practice was all about, getting back into that mindframe of working hard day in and day out. Sometimes that’s what a team needs. We responded well to how hard that practice was. It's not every day you get a practice like that.''

Cammalleri skated at the end of practice like on Monday. Again, he didn't handle any pucks. He said afterward that there was nothing new to report on his recovery from the rib injury.

As to what went wrong Tuesday, no one really wanted to talk about that. Part of the whole forget-and-move-on mantra. But Brown did seem to suggest that the Kings didn't get a full effort from everyone.

``Something that has to happen within the room, not necessarily in a player meeting but in respect to everyone in the room -- we've got to have everyone playing,'' Brown said. ``You look at teams that are winning, it’s not one line or one player carrying them. It’s 20 players pitching in and pulling on the same rope. That’s just a matter of us coming together as a team.''

This game was so ugly, it made a mime scream.

There was none of the usual ``stay the course'' or ``more good than bad'' stuff from Crawford after this performance.

``This is first game in months we played poorly and we played awful tonight,’’ Crawford said. ``It was a stinker, there’s no two ways about it. You can’t mask this one in any way. It was awful and we all have to take responsibility for it.

``I think it starts with me. You have to look at the coach and say hey, these guys got scored on quite a bit early in the game. We've addressed that but we're still having it happen. We can't point fingers at (the players). I think we've all got to look at having some ownership and some accountability of it, myself included, and look at some ways we can address our games right now. From our coaching staff, I can assure you we're burning the midnight oil analyzing and maybe overanalyzing our games.''

This was the King's worst perfomance of the year. Some people around here who have watched the Kings for a long time were saying it was the worst they've ever seen them play.

The last time the Kings lost by seven was, coincidentally, a 7-0 defeat at Nashville on Dec. 23, 2006. It's the eighth consecutive game they have allowed the first goal.

And once Nashville got that first goal about five minutes into the first period, it had two more within 1:15, setting the team record for quickest three goals.

``There’s no excuses for that,’’ Anze Kopitar said. ``We played awful from the first guy to the last guy. It cannot happen again. We’re all very disappointed.’’

``This is as bad as it gets,'' Jean-Sebastien Aubin said. ``We have to regroup, stick with each other and make sure it doesn't happen again. It's embarrassing to do that in front of our fans.''

The Kings practice at 11 a.m. tomorrow in preparation for Thursday's game against Toronto. Crawford said they will try to work their way through this.

``It seemed like it was one of those nights where there was nothing we could do that was going to save us from ourselves,'' Crawford said.

Crawford said the team played hesitant in the first period, and that fear of falling behind again might be the cause.

``It was a total collapse by our group tonight. I don't really have an explanation. I do know that, when you're as fragile as our team has shown itself to be of late, if you get scored on early like that it's probably the worst thing that can happen. I thought we made mistakes on the rush tonight and the rebounds went right to their guys, and it's uncharacteristic of how we've played of late.''

Worst loss by the Kings since Dec. 23 of last season, when they lost 7-0 at Nashville. Notes and quotes from the locker room to come.

A ``Fire Crawford'' chant was picking up steam around the arena midway through the second period, just after the fifth Nashville goal, before the Staples Center organ interrupted. First time I've heard that. It was loud enough where I'd have to say Crawford, Dean and everyone else in the arena heard it as well.

Scoring change on the last Nashville goal. They're giving it to Martin Erat instead of Gelinas.

For Nashville. Rebound goes off his skate and in. 5-0 Nashville midway through the second. This could be the Kings' worst game of the season. I don't think we're going to get the same ``We're doing more good than bad,'' quote from Crawford tonight.

The three goals in a 1:15 span was the quickest in Nashville's 10-year history.

Nashville scores three goals in 1:15, ending with LaBarbera getting yanked for Aubin. But, good news, the Kings play their best when they're behind!

Can the Kings possibly score first?

Dustin Brown's wife, Nicole, is scheduled to have a C-section for their first child on Feb. 11. He said he may ask to take off two games to be there with her. The Kings play at Columbus on Feb. 10 and at St. Louis on Feb. 12.

Dustin Brown suffered a muscle injury in his upper back behind his shoulder blade when he crashed into the boards during Saturday's game against Calgary.

``It hurt more when it happened than any upper body injury I've ever had,'' Brown said. ``I came back into the game and it was sore. After the game, I could hardly lift my shoulder. But today it feels way better. It's still not 100 percent but it's improved a lot over the last day and a half.''

He doesn't anticipate the injury affecting his play tomorrow.

At 11:25 a.m., about 55 minutes into practice, Michael Cammalleri went out on the ice wearing a red jersey. It was his first time skating since he attempted to go out Dec. 26, at the first morning skate after the rib injury occurred, and immediately came off. This time he stayed out there for about half an hour, though he spent a lot of that time with his hands on his knees. It was just skating. He didn't handle the puck at all or do any drills.

``I got the red face going, that's for sure,'' Cammalleri said. ``That's why I wore the (red) jersey, because I knew I'd blend in. But it felt good to get the legs pumping again and get the gear on. That's where I belong, out on the ice.''

Cammalleri really wouldn't say anything about how it felt out there or when he could be back. For some reason, he's extremely secretive about this injury. I'm sure the other teams around the league are scouring around for any Michael Cammalleri injury information they can find. But here's what Crawford said ...

``I know he feels better. What he talked to me about is that now it’s sore. Before it was pain and now it’s just soreness. He feels there’s a big difference between the pain he felt earlier, when it didn’t allow him to do anything, and the soreness he feels now, which he points to as a good sign that the healing is happening.''

It sounds like the three-game roadtrip starting Jan. 15 in Edmonton is a good target for Cammalleri's return.

``The good point is that he’s feeling better,'' Crawford said. ``We all see that. I don’t think it’s going to be these next couple of games. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll be ready to play before we leave for the road trip. Maybe we won’t get lucky and he’ll play the following week.''

Here's what he had to say about the experience: ``My agent called and asked if I wanted to do a commercial and I said, `Why not?’ I had never done one before. It was a lot of fun. I got in there and saw all the extras and I wasn’t sure I could do it. But then you do the takes over and over and, after a while, you don’t even remember all the people there.’’

He said it took nine hours to shoot the 30-second spot. Personally, my favorite is, ``Yo' momma so ugly, they renamed Halloween Yomommaween.'' If you haven't seen it, here it is ...

This game was pretty much a microcosm of the season. A bad start and horrendous penalty killing undid all the good work the Kings put out.

``It’s happened so much lately, starting off on the wrong foot,’’ defenseman Tom Preissing said. ``It’s so detrimental to the team. We’ve got to figure out a way to get by the first 10 minutes without giving up a goal.’’

Calgary's first goal was just bewildering. Robyn Regehr's long-range slap shot shattered Raitis Ivanans' stick right after he shot it, knocking the puck to an upward angle. It slowly fluttered down over LaBarbera's shoulder as he stood motionless. LaBarbera said he didn't know the puck was in the back of the net until he heard the crowd groan and looked back.

``I'm sure everyone in stands can see it and everyone on bench can see it,'' said Crawford, who quipped that he could read the commissioner's signature on the puck as it went in. ``Unfortunately, the guy who needs to see it doesn’t see it. those things are unfortunate and, when you're not playing with the type of confidence that winning gives you, those things do take the wind out of your sails.''

The Kings quickly fell behind 2-0, the fifth game in a row they've trailed early. For the fifth game in a row, they also fought back to at least tie the game. Nagy and Stuart scored within 35 seconds of each other early in the third period as the Kings tied it up 3-3.

Then the Kings got on a two-man advantage and Anze Kopitar gave them the lead just past the midway point of the period when he finished off a puck that was loose in the crease behind the goalie.

But the momentum turned on a tripping penalty to Alexander Frolov, leading to Kristian Huselius' tying goal. Another penalty for holding on Brian Willsie led to the winner from Daymond Langkow with 5:05 to go.

``We were sloppy,’’ captain Rob Blake said. ``We turned the puck over and had bad penalty killing. That’s why we’re in last place. We’ve been in last place all year because of that.’’

The Kings allowed four shots in the third period and Calgary scored three times. The Kings won this game for the middle 49 minutes, but the first four and the final seven killed them.

``You’ve got to love the way our guys are battling,’’ Crawford said. ``If you could take the result out of it, which you can’t, we’re doing more good things than bad.’’

Undone by untimely penalties in the end. Notes and quotes from the locker room to come.

Kopitar scored on a 5-on-3 eight minutes left.

Nagy scored to tie it 3-3 less than three minutes into the third. Now we're in pretty much the same situation as last game. Can the Kings finish this one off?

Brad Stuart scored on a slap shot with a foot on the blue line. Looks like the Kings will attempt another comeback. They've trailed at least 1-0 for five games in a row now.

If anyone still wants the autographs of these guys, here's the schedule tomorrow for the rink tour. Players will be there between 3 to 4 p.m.

Valencia Ice Station: Kopitar, Aubin, Ivanans, Jim Fox, Nick Nickson
Iceoplex Simi Valley: Blake, Willsie, Modry, Dallman, Bob Miller
Pasadena Ice Skating Center: Johnson, Stuart, Armstrong, Mike Johnston
Ice Town, Riverside: Frolov, Preissing, Klemm, Giuliano, Daryl Evans
Ice Chalet, Palos Verdes: Cammalleri, Thornton, Handzus, Marc Crawford
Aliso Viejo Ice Palace: O'Sullivan, LaBarbera, Visnovsky, Nelson Emerson
Center Ice Arena Ontario: Brown, Calder, Nagy, Dave Lewis

Six minutes into second period, Frolov raced in as Calgary goalie Mikka Kiprusoff went behind the net to try to clear the puck. Fro stole the puck, reached around the post and scored his seventh of the season. 2-1 Calgary.

and another bad bounce. Robyn Regehr took a long-range slap shot and it shattered Raitis Ivanans' stick near the point of the shot, redirecting it past LaBarbera. He never saw the puck and didn't move as it went past him. This is after the Kings missed two opportunities at an open net in the first minute. Looking a lot like how last game ended.

And now it's 2-0 less than four minutes in. Derek Armstrong blocked a shot from Owen Nolan but the puck went right to Daymond Langkow, who cleaned it up for his 15th goal of the season.

Canada won. Kings prospects Jonathan Bernier, Wayne Simmonds and Thomas Hickey get the gold, though Bernier didn't get the start in goal over the last four games of the tournament.

Kings players watched the second period of the semifinal game in the locker room Friday. The locker room was separated by nationalities. The American players had no love for Canada just because there were Kings prospects on the team.

``I wouldn't be rooting for them even if Bernier was playing,'' Patrick O'Sullivan said. ``I hate Canada.''

``It was rolling and the angle was not the best either. I kind of slapped it. I got so excited and surprised at the same time that I just wanted to put it in the net. I hit it flat and with the angle just missed it. The frustrating part is it missed the goalie and the post, because if I hit the goalie it probably would have rolled in. It happens once in a while, the kind of blooper where you miss the open net.''

Despite the loss last night, the Kings were upbeat about their play -- especially on the defensive end. Columbus had few good chances. Two of their goals came off deflections.

``If you're a goaltender, you want teams playing in front of you the way we're playing in front of them right now,'' Crawford said. ``They’re not seeing any abundance of breakdowns. I cant remember the last time we gave up a 2-on-1, a 3-on-1. I cant remember the last time I saw a guy wide open in front of the net for a scoring chance. We’ve really packed it in nicely. We have cleaned up our game and, as a goalie, you have to be excited about that. You know most of the stuff is going to come the way it did last night. They're going to take the puck low, try to outman you at the net. I contend those are much more manageable for a goalie than the breakdown type chances.''

``For the most part, we’ve gotten better at our own end as far as not giving up as much,'' LaBarbera said. ``It puts the onus on us as goalies not to give up too many bad goals. It seems like goals that are going in are scrambles around the net and loose pucks. We're working on that.''

The Kings rotated starting goalies for the past four games. With Jason LaBarbera getting healthier and the games spread out for the rest of the month -- the Kings play back-to-back games just once -- there's an opportunity for LaBarbera to get back to being the workhorse.

``They’re good enough now where I don’t have to worry about them,'' LaBarbera said of his ribs, which kept him out two weeks early in December. ``There was a play last night where I was covering the puck and there was a guy in front of me. I kind of pushed him and I felt it a little bit but it wasn’t bad. In the back of my head, it let me know that they're fine.''

LaBarbera has said in the past that he prefers to be on the ice a lot. It helps him get in a rhythm.

Crawford has a history of going with the hot hand. That's not Aubin, who he yanked early in the second period of last night's game. If LaBarbera plays well, I could see him going every game the rest of the month except perhaps taking off one of the back-to-back Jan. 18-19 in Calgary and Vancouver.

``Nobody knows for sure but I think he is showing signs of being at the point now where he can play a little bit more often,'' Crawford said.

The players seemed a little frustrated but not discouraged by this loss. They know they had their chances to win the game. They feel like they were doing the same things that led to the three-game winning streak. It just didn't happen this time (probably because I was there).

``We were getting chances and playing the majority of the (third) period on their end,’’ Patrick O’Sullivan said. ``We’re playing well now so we don’t want to dwell on this too much. We have to take the positives from tonight, forget about the loss and worry about Saturday.’’

The Blue Jackets got a nice bounce at the end when Peca got the deflection up and over LaBarbera off Jason Chimera's slap shot.

Then the bounces, or rolls, went against the Kings when the puck rolled a bit with a minute left when Kopitar had his shot at a wide open net. Hanzus also had an open net with two minutes left and the puck floating in front, but he couldn't get there in time.

``From my end, I thought we scored both times,’’ LaBarbera said. ``When you win, the pucks finds ways into the net. The puck just didn’t bounce for us tonight.’’

Crawford said Labarbera will be in net Saturday. It looks like the goalie rotation is over.

``I didn’t think he played very well tonight and that’s unfortunate,’’ Crawford said of Aubin, who allowed three goals in 12 shots. ``Jason came in and played well in a tough spot.''

The Kings seem to think they can brush this loss aside and start a new streak. We'll see Saturday against Calgary. 11 a.m. practice tomorrow.

"Our guys have confidence in their ability to score and they have confidence in their ability to come back," Crawford said. "They're doing very creative things offensively, and we generated the kind of chances that should have resulted in a more favorable outcome for us. But we didn't get it."

A grimacing Crawford yanked Aubin after 26:05 and three goals. LaBarbera finished off the second period. Kings trail 3-2. Just setting it up for another third-period comeback!

The Kings have won three in a row, and I haven't been to any of them. If they lose tonight, I am going to blame myself.

There's really no reason to give LaBarbera the night off. Crawford has been rotating the goalies the past four games. That could continue depending on how Aubin does tonight.

``Our schedule frees up now where we're not playing a burdensome amount of games, so there’s an opportunity for us to go with one goalie,'' Crawford said. ``Or, should J-S continue to play well, we’ll continue to give him games.''

Aubin has allowed four goals in his last 188 minutes on the ice, two starts and twice finishing games for LaBarbera. He has a .953 save percentage over that period.

``I’ve played pretty solid the past couple games,'' Aubin said. ``I’m focusing on winning games and going game to game. I'm not going to go too far ahead. It's been fun so far but I'd like to get (the team's) fourth win in a row tonight and go from there.''

Michael Cammalleri's rib injury is more like Jason LaBarbera's than previously thought. When Cammalleri hurt his ribs Dec. 22 in Nashville, he thought it was just a bruise. He even tried to skate before the next game but knew as soon as he got on the ice that he couldn't go. Now the Kings are saying the injury is a cartilage strain.

``It's more like LaBarbera's injury,'' Crawford said. ``If anything, it's a little deeper. He's doing two treatments a day and getting as much exercise as he can in the limited things he can do. It's a slow-to-heal injury because, when you have those cartilage types of problems, it affects everything you do from breathing to moving.''

Cammalleri will miss his fifth consecutve game tonight against Columbus and isn't yet ready to set any timeframe on his return.

``Initially, I was hoping I could play right away,'' Cammalleri said. ``After trying a little bit, obviously it hasn't been that way.''

LaBarbera missed two weeks of play with his injury early last month.

``It sounds like from talking to him it’s similar to what I had,'' LaBarbera said. ``I know what he’s going through. It’s pretty painful. Hopefully he can get better because we need him back. I would imagine being hit probably wouldn’t feel that good. For me, it was more about twisting and being more flexible. For him, battling in corner and being strong on the puck is a big part of his game. If it's in the back of his mind that his ribs aren’t 100 percent, I'm sure it would affect his play.''

"It's a lot easier game to play when you're being assertive and making assertive decisions," Kings coach Marc Crawford said. "It's easier said than done, it is an emotional game and the emotion of getting some confidence and feeling good about yourself is the exact tonic that our team needed."

"We're doing very simple things, we shot the puck and looked for rebounds," Nagy said. "We just played like a team and we've been winning games.''

"I felt really good, and we had a lot more chances and played much more confident," said Frolov, who now has 100 goals in his career. "It's our third win in a row after eight losses and a new year, we're really excited to start the new year."

"We're not down now when we get a goal scored against us the way we were two or three weeks ago, it seemed like we were playing on our heels as opposed to playing on our toes," Crawford said.

The last time the Kings scored nine goals was Nov. 16, 1995, against the Islanders at the Forum.

Frolov set a career high with five points and Nagy tied his high with five.

Lubo was a team-best plus-4.

The Kings scored a season-high five power-play goals. The club record is six.

The team will take tomorrow off. Practice was canceled. I guess they earned this one.

Wow, Kings win 9-2 over Chicago. A hat trick for Nagy, two goals for Frolov and one apiece for Brown, Sully, Preissing and Visnovsky. Maybe I should not go to games more often? To be fair, though, I was at the Dallas comeback.

I'll post some post-game quotes as soon as I get them from Lindsay. In the mean time, here are some quotes she got from this morning's skate ...

Crawford on first half of season: "Well I hope we have 32 points in the first half of the season with a
victory tonight and we're disappointed with it for sure. We started
off with some very good promise after digging a little bit of a hole
going 1-5. And then we started to play very well I think, it's
largely been characteristic of when our goaltending has been good. We
had that stretch where Jason played really well and our played really
well. We had a terrible December and unfortunately we played a lot of
games in that timeframe. You hope when you play like that, when it
seems like everything that can go wrong goes wrong, you hope you're
not playing that many games and unfortunately for us we played a lot.
So we've dug ourselves a very big hole but we cant look at the
overall picture right now we have to concentrate on process and I
think if we look at the things that we can control, which is how
we're playing in our own end, limiting how many chances that we're
trying to give up I think we're giving ourselves an opportunity to be
in games and a result from that process will follow."

"We have been very close in all these games, we won the last two, and
eight of the last ten were all one-goal games and we've come out on
the right side of the last two. We have to come with the mindset that
when we think the game's going to be close try not to give up easy
chances. You've got to make shots to win, you have to make good plays
to win, but we give ourselves a better opportunity if we're not
giving away chances."

Crawford had said Monday that he didn't think Frolov was playing like his usual self from coming back from the groin injury. Looks like that changed today. Here's what Frolov said about the groin before the game ...

"It's so-so. I've had a lot of problems with my groin and it's still
hurt and I just try to play through it. It's been hard to be in good
condition because I couldn't skate for a long time, I didn't do leg
workouts, lower body workouts, and now with the schedule there's a
game pretty much every next day. It's hard because we don't really
practice a lot. It's getting better so I'm more concerned about it
not getting worse.

"Sometimes I feel a little bit better sometimes I feel a little bit
worse. I guess with injuries like that I need to have some time off
the ice to heal up 100 percent and it's hard to get it right now and
I don't really want to shut it down. I really want to play so I'm
just playing through it."

Rich and I are taking the day off to watch our alma mater in the Rose Bowl. Lindsay Czarnecki is going to fill in for us at the skate and game today. She's huge into hockey. She'll e-mail me some stuff after the skate and the game, and I'll post it on the blog when I can. It might take a little longer than usual, but I'll try to get it up promptly.