Flames 3-2

The Flames get this goal because Kopitar loses the puck in the defensive zone and his lackadaisical defensive effort ends up with the puck in our own net.

If labs would hug the post like u are suppose to when the puck is in the corner, there would be no goal. Its amazing to see how many times other goalies come up with a big save at an important part of the game and compare that to how many goals are scored against labs at the same crucial point in the game.

Dont use the excuse that the d was soft or what not. A goaltenders sole job is to stop the puck, regardless of the d that is infont of him

Arron is 100% right. Ya, Labs does suck, we already know that. But Kopitar Bertuzzi a weak shove, and then just stood two feet behind him and watched him set up the goal. That was horrible. I don't care how many goals the guys scores... you HAVE to play D. Completely different game if Kopitar gives Bertuzzi a hard time, and less space on that play.

Sure, Labs is not an elite guy, but do you all ignore Doughty getting turned on the boards by Langkow and losing positioning. From there it was a stroll to the FRONT OF THE NET UNCHECKED for the GOAL SCORING OPPORTUNITY.
Ok - now tear Doughty to pieces.

Yeah, right.

Cristobal,

The difference is Kopitar wasn't turned around by a player. Kopi had control of the puck behind his own net, coughed it up to Bertuzzi and then watched Bert pass the puck. It is hockey 101 to get the puck out of your own zone but Kopitar didn't even get it past the goal line. You have to be better than that when your team just ties the game up.

I saw that play, and subsequent loss, as a great example of how teammates try to rely on each other and when one of them (kopitar) doesn't do his job, the other one (labs) gets left out to dry.

Looking at the play a few times, I feel like Jason must have thought Burtuzzi was 'taken car of' by his teammate Kopi. But Kopi totally failed. He didn't get burned, he just didn't give effort. So before Labs knew it, the puck was centered and wham! It was in.

Now, Labs should have known that the pass was a very good possibility even if Kopi played Bertuzzi hard. So you have to hang the goal on Labs, but don't forget his 'teammate' failed him.

A result of poor D and poor goal tending at a VERY critical time.

waves - Still can't criticize Doughty?

Here's the point: three mistakes. Kopitar on Bertuzzi; Doughty on Langkow; JLB on the shot.

Kopitar: I gather he lost the puck before the highlight (on the Kings site) started? If so, he's got to get the puck out of the zone. During the highlight, there's two instances of Kopitar bouncing off Bertuzzi. Now, that's how Bertuzzi is supposed to play; he's bigger and stronger than Kopitar. But Kopitar needed to put more into those checks. Bertuzzi should have been tied up. In retrospect, it would have been better for Kopitar to risk an interference penalty. Nevertheless:

Doughty: checks Langkow. Good. Doesn't finish check. Bad. Langkow used Doughty's check to beat him. This is a veteran move. The fact is, 99.999999% of the checks Doughty has thrown in his life have not been against players who could do that to him (i.e. wily grown-ups). It's a mental adjustment. He should have been a hair to his left. That tiny amount of positional strength would have made it impossible for Langkow to make it to the net in time to receive that pass. That's a teachable mistake.

LaBarbera: Check the replay and watch only LaBarbera. When the pass comes, he pushes off. Why? Is there another player in the slot to worry about? No. The coverage, besides Langkow, is perfect. Before he pushes off the post, LaBarbera's position is perfect. If he does nothing, if he falls asleep, there is no goal. All he has to do is not move. So what does he do?

He pushes off.

Why?

There's only one reason, and there's two names for it, the polite name and the true one. The polite one is, he "over-reacted." The true one: he panicked. He was not reacting to the actual play in front of him, but some potential feared play where the puck goes to some guy in the slot (like the previous goal scored on him) and he needs to move laterally. Either he was still thinking about the previous goal, or he's got a psychological problem about all those years of not being quick enough laterally; either way, he pushes off the post.

Kopitar's mistake is partially just the breaks (Bertuzzi is bigger and stronger than he is -- although this raises the question, shouldn't Murray have had Handzus out against Bertuzzi in this situation?) and partially his unwillingness to risk taking a penalty to tie up his man.

Doughty's mistake is just getting used to checking forwards whose very survival depends on their ability to roll off of checks like that. I haven't seen Doughty make the same mistake twice, so it's not giving me pause.

LaBarbera's mistake is psychological. I don't know how you correct for that. It's a pee-wee goalie mistake, which, I assume, he's making now because he's been promoted to his level of incompetence. All this stuff about how spectacular he was otherwise is beside the point, on the level of "besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?" Jamie Storr and Robb Stauber were similarly brilliant otherwise.

Reading between the lines of Murray's quotes on JLB, I get the feeling the experiment may soon be over.

I saw that play closely. Kopi gave Bert a shove and
Bert stuck out his butt and pushed away from the boards. Kopi could have played it more physically, but that is also a play that often ends up in a penalty Kopi had his guy isolated with his back to the net. Bert made a good backhand pass, but Kopi had to have thought that a teammate was covering someone driving to the net. In the end Doughty falling and an exceptionally poor read by Labs were just as detrimental as Kopi's play.

Quisp - I have the thing DVR'd. I have the entire play to watch and there is no mistake made by Kopitar or Labs on that play. Doughty not only let Langkow (a real NHL player) beat him, he also let Bourque skate right past him to check Kopitar and dislodge the puck to set the entire play up. Langkow's stick actually makes contact with the puck less than 2 feet from Labs. There is no way anyone should be getting on the end of that pass. If I'm Murray, I say that we lost the game because of a mistake by a young defenseman and that's it. Learn, and move on.
I'm sure that when the tapes are studied the team will know why it lost and, hopefully, realize they need to quit screwing themselves and Labs.
For every mistake they make, he gets the abuse from the fans.
Murray needs to quit juggling the lines and let this thing settle.

As for Labs moving off the post, that's his job. If the defenseman gets beaten, he can't do anything about it, but if the puck gets into the slot and finds an open attacker, he's got to be facing the shooter to have any chance.

Cristobal --

Well, I have seen the play maybe two dozen times from the CBC feed (it's on the Kings site so everyone can see it who wants to).

My analysis of the play is based entirely on repeated viewing of the replay.

What I said was, three mistakes, all of which have to happen if that goal is going to be scored.

It's not JLB's job being to "leave the post," to be prepared for a potential, hypothetical shot "if the puck gets into the slot and finds an open attacker." I think you must realize this is a crazy thing to say. It's not JLB's job to "guess" where the shot is going to come from. JLB's job is, in fact, to keep his eye on the puck, to maintain awareness of his surroundings (peripheral vision for a goalie with 20-20 vision extends from the corner to the slot, so he should be aware of any player there), to block any passes through the crease with his stick, to protect the short side, and to react to the play in front of him. You said that if Doughty gets beaten "[JLB] can't do anything about it." But that's absurd. It's his job to do something about it. Every scoring chance by definition means someone missed their assignment; and clearly we should not expect every scoring chance to turn into a goal. If that were the case, you would do better to just pull the goalie for 60 minutes.

Doughty was beaten on the boards a couple of seconds before the goal. Kopitar, whose back was to Langkow, might not have known; but it was directly in front of JLB.

Kopitar allowed a perfect pass into a scoring area from a player he was checking. That's a mistake. If two other mistakes don't happen, there's no goal, but it's still a mistake.

JLB's mistake is a fundamental one. There's simply no way the coaches are looking at that tape and saying, "well, Jason did everything he could on that one." What they're saying is, "if he's positionally sound, he makes that save."

As someone else pointed out, the guy is in a contract year; he's not going to be here after this season. The best you can say is he's playing inconsistently. Murray believes that goalies need to put a string of games together, in order to be able to judge them fairly. JLB is not doing himself any favors, and I think his time is up or is quickly running out.

As far as people piling on JLB and/or giving Doughty a pass...

Nobody's saying Doughty didn't miss his assignment on that play, nor is anyone saying it didn't lead to a goal. The point is, Doughty is playing like an all-star right now; he's leading the league in rookie plus/minus; he leads the Kings in ATOI. He plays and excels in all situations. He is by far a net positive. Rookies make mistakes -- they even have a phrase for it: "rookie mistake" -- if Doughty were making the same mistakes over and over again, one might have reason to worry; but I've never seen him make the same mistake twice. Because he's smart and he learns from his mistakes.

JLB has played many games for the Kings in the recent past. He's played well in some games and not in others. In contrast to Doughty, he does make the same mistakes, fundamental mistakes, positional mistakes, over and over again. Rebounds, five hole, short side, post. He's not a rookie and he's not learning. He's not getting better, he's not winning over anybody, and this is a contract year for him. He's a free agent in July.

The idea that the Kings are "screwing Labs" is ... well, I don't even know what that means. He's started every game. That's an act of faith on the Kings' part. The Kings have lowered their shots-against to league-best. Despite this, JLB is still not below 3.00 GAA because he's still not able to stop 90% of the shots. Despite this, nobody from the Kings has had any criticism for JLB at all.

Quisp - By "screwing themselves and Labs" I mean passing to the other team in the slot, getting turned inside out by an NHL sniper named Ryan Smythe, missing a cross-ice pass on the power play and allowing Primeau to enter the zone 2 on 1 and forcing Labs to stop it, CONSTANTLY failing to clear the zone (especially in the final 5 minutes of the [detroit] game (Moller, O'Sullivan), allowing a handy goal-scorer like Langkow to beat you senseless to the front of the net, taking early penalties game after game and falling behind in every game but 2 of 10, naming an average-at-best defenseman the alternate captain, missing your shots on the opposition's net (Stoll missed a wide open net in the 1st), trading CammO for players that aren't on the roster, trading an all-star defenseman for an average one and his teamate who has seriously dropped off after a couple of good games.

All these issues and you want me to panic now? All these issues and it's Labs that needs to go?

I've never said Labs is an NHL starter. But Murray did and he's going to leave him in there until he REALLY proves he's not average. When there are no breakdowns by the team and there are still losses, OFF WITH HIS HEAD. There are still 72 games to go. We need to be patient and focus on what REALLY causes the losses.

To use a military cliche - "fire when you see the whites of their eyes." Right now the picture is too blurry.