Here’s what Kings coach Darryl Sutter had to say about Tyler Toffoli, who had a goal and an assist in a 4-3 shootout victory Thursday over the Ducks: “He had a tough camp last year, so the difference in demeanor would be that this year he’s playing well two games in, and last year he struggled. We get along good. He’s a good boy.”
Jordan Nolan, Dwight King and Tyler Toffoli scored in regulation play and King supplied the winner in the shootout as the Kings defeated the Ducks 4-3 on Thursday at Staples Center. Toffoli assisted on King’s second-period goal and Martin Jones had 25 saves. Here are three takeaways from the Kings’ win:
First, Toffoli could be poised for a breakout season for the Kings. We’ve seen flashes of offensive brilliance from him from time to time, never more than during the playoffs while skating with Jeff Carter and Tanner Pearson. He scored a superb goal Thursday against the Ducks and set up King for the goal that tied the score at 2 in the second period. The pass was the better play than the shot, so he slipped a cross-ice pass to King, who beat Ducks goalie John Gibson. Here’s a link to the video highlights: http://kings.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=731825&navid=DL|LAK|home
Second, Ryan Kesler is going to be a major pain in the butt for everyone in the NHL now that he’s with the Ducks, a team that learned it must be better up the middle after losing to the Kings in the second round of the playoffs last spring. He’s strong on the puck, makes a pest of himself around the net and when placed in the right spot he could be a difference-maker against the Kings’ formidable centers, including Anze Kopitar.
Third, has everybody had enough of the preseason yet? Let’s get going, shall we?
There is no timetable for Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick’s exhibition debut, at least not one for public consumption. Quick, coach Darryl Sutter and the team’s medical staff will determine when Quick’s surgically-repaired wrist is sound enough for him to play.
“We’ve got a lot of minds put together trying to figure it out,” Quick said. “We’ll figure it out. We’ve got a little time. Obviously, it’s going to happen in a hurry. I’ll come in and keep working every day and keep getting better like I have been and, hopefully, I can get a couple of games in.”
Quick played only 49 games last season because of a nagging groin injury, well down from a career-high of 72 set during the 2009-10 season. He said he hadn’t thought much about decreasing his workload for the coming season, leaving the decisions up to the coaching staff.
“You love playing games, so you never voluntarily ask for games off,” Quick said. “I think the coaching staff has a good feel for goaltenders and the team and what’s best for them. They run the ship and we just go to work. That’s it.
“They tell me to take a day off, I take a day off. They tell me I’m going, I’m going. You want to be involved. You want to be a part of it. You work so hard all summer to play in those games, you want to try to get in there and be a difference-maker for the team.
“So, you want to be a part of it, obviously. I don’t have a number in my head that I want or anything like that.”
Here’s what Kings forward Jarret Stoll had to say about the raising of the club’s first championship banner before the 2012-13 season and what it will be like when the second up goes up on Oct. 8: “We’re going to enjoy that for five minutes and then it’s a new season and we’ll drop the puck. It was really cool to just all be standing in a corner as a group, as a team that went through it all just to see it going up and see all the flashes in the crowd. The first banner in the history of the organization, in the city. It was was special.” Continue reading “Kings forward Jarret Stoll talks about raising banners and his offseason hip surgery” »
Drew Doughty, left, celebrates with Dustin Brown during the playoffs last season.
Drew Doughty joined his teammates for the second of two practice sessions Wednesday in El Segundo. He was with a more veteran group, which isn’t expected to play in Thursday’s exhibition game against the Ducks at Staples Center. Doughty isn’t ready to play, anyway, after suffering an unspecified upper-body injury before the start of training camp Friday. Doughty said he wasn’t sure when he might make his exhibition debut. The Kings also play against the Ducks at the Honda Center on Sunday.
No question, center Anze Kopitar was the KIngs’ most-valuable player last season, and probably the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that. Etc., etc., etc. But the oddsmakers at Bovada in Las Vegas don’t like his chances to win the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s MVP this coming season. Kopitar was only 10th on their list of potential MVPs, following the usual suspects, including the leader Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins at 7/4 odds. Ryan Getzlaf of the Ducks and Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning were next at 6/1. Kopitar was well back at 18/1.
No surprises in any of the Kings’ first moves as they trimmed their roster to 50 players Tuesday. Defenseman Jacob Middleton and Roland McKeown and forwards Matthew Mistele, Michael Amadio, Jake Marchment and Spencer Watson were reassigned to their junior teams. Goalie Brandon Maxwell, defenseman Stephen Harper and centers Taylor Burke and Conor McGlynn were released from camp.
Here’s some of what Kings coach Darryl Sutter had to say after a split-squad loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Monday in Glendale, Ariz.: “You are still wanting to see more of your young players who you want to give opportunities to in an exhibition game, as I said before. When you play two in one day there are a lot of guys that normally would not get a game at all, so now they get an opportunity.”
Here’s more: “Looking at Jeff (Carter), Tanner (Pearson) and Tyler (Toffoli) as a unit not as Jeff Carter. And we are trying to get some lines together and seeing if it can work together. Yeah, I think that line is really good. They were good all night.”
Marian Gaborik scored two goals and Andy Andreoff had one, but the Kings lost a 3-1 lead in the third period of their split-squad exhibition game against the Arizona Coyotes on Monday at Staples Center. Nick Shore then supplied the winner in a 4-3 shootout victory for the Kings. Here are three things about the Kings’ exhibition opener:
If Gaborik and Anze Kopitar appeared to be in midseason form, it might have had something to do with a short summer after the Kings won the Stanley Cup in June. “It feels like we never left,” said Gaborik, who slipped behind the defense to score a second-period goal and then converted on a pretty give-and-go play with Kopitar while on the rush in the third. “I feel good out there.” Gaborik, Kopitar and Dustin Brown formed the Kings’ top line after they acquired him at the trade deadline last March. There’s no reason to think they won’t play together again this season.
Shore doesn’t have much of a shot at making the Kings’ roster to start the season and most likely with play for their American Hockey League club in Manchester, N.H. He showed some veteran poise when he scored the winning goal in the shootout, however. He seemed unfazed by the fact that there are no jobs available in Los Angeles and that his ticket is all but punched for the minors. “Everyone in the organization takes a lot of pride and being an L.A. King and the tradition they’ve had the last couple of years, it’s fun to be a part of,” Shore said. “Ever since I was drafted and even before that they started to turn things around. It’s really just a mindset, and it starts at the top and trickles all the way down.”
Martin Jones started in goal, with the Kings in no rush to hurry Jonathan Quick back into a game after he underwent offseason wrist surgery. Jones stopped all nine shots he faced in 31 minutes, 13 seconds before Jeff Deslauriers replaced him with the Kings leading 2-0 in the second period. That’s another good sign that the Kings’ goaltending is in capable hands. Quick isn’t expected to be held out of too many upcoming games, although the Kings are typically secretive about such things. The Kings also played J.F. Berube in the split-squad game Monday at Glendale, Ariz. Depth is a wonderful thing to have, especially in goal and especially for an organization that didn’t have enough of it over the years.
The Kings play split-squad exhibitions against the newly renamed Arizona Coyotes. Here’s the full schedule of preseason games: http://kings.nhl.com/club/page.htm?id=97755