Everybody Wang Chung tonight...We were told the Kings were young, solid, strong, and quick. Surely that 80 points, 5th in the West record made that sound correct. Jonathan Quick leads the League in the stupid stat of 35 wins. Drew Doughty was Mr. Wonderful and would bury us in the powerplays.
Well, they sure didn't look like that description.
The Kings looked out of it. Perhaps still suffering the distate of their previous loss? Whatever it was they didn't look like a team that had 80 points and sat comfy as the 5th in the West. They looked slow more times than not, easily kept to the outside and fell into the gameplan the Habs set up. Jonathan Quick looked as shaky as his save percentage indicated. Mr. Wonderful? I honestly didn't even notice him until they showed his face on TV as he was sitting on the bench. Olympic hangover evident.
The description people made of them had them sounding like the Penguins or the Blackhawks. Instead they looked like the Thrashers or the Islanders...
It took 22 seconds for Gionta to smack in the rebound. Habs barely allowed them to sniff the net back in their zone until Kopitar smoked by everyone to dipsy doodle around Jaro. (Yes, Jaro. What's that message? "Good work, now go sit on the bench." Very lucky the Kings are not like the physical goons of the Sharks or this would have been fugly. Hope it didn't mess with Price's mojo). Dominic Moore made Quick look Not-So-Quick with an actual shorthanded goal. Habs appeared to try to get the Kings to put up a fighting chance at getting back into the game by taking a zillion penalties, but even then, the Habs are so used to being shorthanded it didn't matter.
Third period started a bit like the first, only it was Pouliot this time scoring 35 seconds in. Nothing happened for the rest of the period until Modin did the same cut-across goal as Kopitar (minus the coast-to-coast rush) but all that did was wake up the Habs as deja vu from Thursday was settling in. You know, the DON'T FUCK THIS UP YOU CAN BEAT THIS TEAM thing? Yea, then the Kings pulled Quick and Pleky hit the empty net.
Game. Are we back in 8th?
Glenn Healy can fuck off too. The three stars should have been the entire Gomez-Gionta-Pouliot line. Hell, Dominic Moore maybe deserved a star.
The big, bad Ducks got shutout by the Coyotes today. The Ducks are not like the Kings, but more like the Sharks. We only hope they're suffering from massive Olympic hangover...