O'Donnell fights for Doughty
Unfortunately, since last night's game was not televised, there's no visual account of this, but there was a rather interesting incident in the second period of the Kings-Islanders game.
It seems as though Islanders forward Matt Martin delivered a rough hit to Kings defenseman Drew Doughty, after which Doughty's partner, Sean O'Donnell, jumped on Martin and drew a five-minute penalty and an ejection. This morning, I called Terry Murray to get his perspective on the incident.
MURRAY: ``The Islanders player came across and it was a situation where it was a shoulder hit to the head area, one of those late hits that needs to be taken out of the game, in my opinion. In that situation, O'Donnell responded to protect his teammate, and that's a good thing to see. With the culture we're trying to build here, that's exactly what we want to see happen. It's a great message to all of the players on the team.''
The obvious contrast is to the incident last season, in which Tampa Bay's Evgeny Artyukhin delivered a questionable hit to Doughty but didn't draw much of a response from the Kings.
15 Comments
Leave a comment
About the bloggers
Rich Hammond has covered the Kings, on a full-time or part-time basis, since the 2000-01 season. He was the beat writer for the entire John Torchetti era and has witnessed Bob Miller singing country music in a Nashville honky-tonk bar. A native of Los Angeles, Rich has worked at the Daily News since 1999 and also serves as the paper's deputy sports editor. E-mail Rich at rich.hammond@dailynews.com.
Jill Painter joined the Daily News in 2000 and during the last eight years she's covered the Dodgers, Cal State Northridge, UCLA, Kings, golf and everything in between. Even though she's from Colorado, she still freezes in the Staples Center press box but always manages to thaw her fingers in time to make deadline. E-mail Jill at jill.painter@dailynews.com.
veteran leadership from the blueline... take note former kings: 6 > 4
Rich, that's why this blog is so great, an incident happens the night before and you call up the coach and get a direct quote from him on the subject. I love it! Something you can do with a blog that you don't have space or time for with the paper. Rich I hope you know how appreciative most of the fans of this blog are of you.
As to the incident, we can see the culture building day by day, these guys are caring for one another and playing as a team. I can't wait for the season to start!
Thats Awesome! Hopefully Kings Vision can get us the highlights.
3 Days till Frozen Fury!!!!
Ditto NMKingfan! Spot on! Thanks Rich!
This is why OD, at the age of 37, is still paired with Doughty and is a top 6 D-Man on this team (this is in reference to Pierre Lebrun's article yeaterday). OD along with Scuderi brings the intangible that only a veteran D-Man can bring to this team, and that's guts to stand up for a teammate. I wish this would've happend last year, but the past is the past. The point is, this pre-season we've seen the guy's finally fight for one another, and not take crap from other teams. Another lesson that I'm learning is that Doughty is going to be a marked man all year. I hope that he can handle it.
can you guys please let me know during the kings and ducks game no one went after Evgeny Artyukhin for the hit on drew doughty last year? they should have sent that guy a message from the start of the game
Whenever I think of Sean O'Donnell, this comes to mind...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jgtP4XNX6I
I wonder if the "lower body injury" back in April is the same thing that has plagued him recently; i.e. groin....that can become chronic, although I hope not..
Alexander Frolov, LW/RW
2009/04/10: Entering play on Saturday against the Sharks, Los Angeles Kings forward Alexander Frolov has scored three goals and posted a plus-2 rating in four games since returning from a lower body injury. Frolov has two goals and one assist in five earlier matchups with the Sharks this season.
Hopefully this incident will rub off on the other tough guys of the team.
I love seeing that guys are gonna stick up for each other. I am a little worried though that Rattis is so damn awkward. We are really missing that Lappy type of guy on our team. Defenseman playing the enforcer role is dangerous road to go down. The thought of half of our top pairing (whoever Doughty is paired with) getting hit with a 2-5 annd a 10 can be totally exploited by the other team. I really wish we would have got a guy like Moen. I think Lombardi dropped the ball on that one.
Hopefully this incident will rub off on the SOFT guys of the team. Frolov/Kopitar/Purcell
Not only that response but Simmonds dropped the gloves with Martin not long after his penalty expired....
There are highlights from last night's game at:
http://islanders.nhl.tv
Just heard about the Blog being adopted by the Kings, Rich. Congrats.
"can you guys please let me know during the kings and ducks game no one went after Evgeny Artyukhin for the hit on drew doughty last year? they should have sent that guy a message from the start of the game"
Seems to me that there were some attempts at retaliation. Immediately after the hit, O'Donnell went after Artyukhin but Arty turned away refusing to fight and O'Donnell got a roughing penalty. As I recall, the game was close and most of the Kings tried to win the game rather than looking for payback--and I'd bet a lot the ref's told everyone to cut it out so they were watching for trouble. Its also my recollection that after the hit Arty was not played that much and it seemed to me he tried to stay out of trouble. If anything was said on the ice, he igored it. I can't hear what is being said out on the ice but I thought Ivanans and Simmonds both were talking to the guy. Last, Arty's huge and I'd opine that only a few kings would be physically able to take him on successfully--even if they could have goaded him to fight somebody and he was going to make the Kings take the instigator penalty. (Sean Avery loves this situation: cheaps shots someone then refuses to fight; in Nashville, they call Avery the turtle man.)