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.
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...
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 Young