This 18 year old kid, just recently acquired in the June Entry draft, was more than up to the task of fending off the pesky kids from Arizona today. What better way to forget the pains of yesterday's game than with a solid 60 minutes of hockey today?
Seemed like a good remedy to the roughly 350 in attendance. Throughout the game they were cheering the goals and oohing (and then aahing) at the slick moves of #48 Andrei Loktionov. Damn he's fun to watch.
Just as the collective team looked completely different than the lethargic performance of last night, so did one Mr Brayden Schenn. That's #55 for those scoring along at home. He netted the first two goals of the game before the 10-minute mark of the first.
If you read yesterday's article, you know I'm a fan of guys keeping the goalie involved after scoring. This became contagious today (in a good way). After Schenn's second, #85 Geoff Walker (of course!) was the first guy down to tap Berube. Quickly behind him were Schenn and Hickey. By the fourth goal later in the game all five guys on the ice made it down to Berube. Nice to see!
Shortly after Schenn's second goal we were back to the the theme of this two game series - fight, fight, fight.
LA #74 Dwight King agreed to "go" after Phx #24 Jonas Ahnelov (one of two "A" wearing Coyotes, discussed yesterday) requested a dance. King started it off with a short elbow to Ahnelov's face, followed by three right hands - one of which landed near Ahnelov's shoulder causing it to separate. The fight was immediately stopped and the Yotes "A" was lead of the ice and back to the locker room for further evaluation.
Yesterday there were a few points in the game where Phx player X would start jawing with Kings player Y...only to virtually "tag out" and let Phx player Z handle the fight with Kings player Y.
It wasn't like player Z was coming to the aid of the first player. It was more like X changed his mind and was like "Here, you do it."
Today saw more of this strange behavior. Specifically, Phx #57 Igor Gogalsky starts running his mouth - HARD - won't stop even after the play is over. Then he hands it off to Phx #59 Sena Acolatse who is more than ready when the puck drops. Bamn, its on.
Unfortunately for him, LA's Kyle Clifford beats him down...including the always crowd pleasing, Donkey Kong fist smash on TOP of his head. That might work in video games, not so much on the ice though.
LA #79 Colten Teubert played with much more discipline today. He was still nasty and plenty aggressive. Just properly restrained.
One funny moment saw Phx #71 Kyle Hagel practically begging Mr. Nasty to scrap with him. We're talking several minutes of trying to goad him. Teubert just flat ignored him like he wasn't even there. Pretty funny to watch.
Other random notes:
* There was even some hair pulling during the fight between LA #77 Dennis McCauley and Phx #57 Igor Gogalsky.
* LA #80 Nicolas Deslauriers looked solid...again...especially during the first half of the game.
* LA #37 Hickey played more like the guy he was with Team Canada.
* LA #76 Viatcheslav Voynov scored with a nice shot from the blue line. It was going in from the moment it left his stick.
* LA #48 Andrei Loktionov is a joy to watch. So fast. So skilled. This was just on one shift - he splits two defenders at the blue line to keep pressure with the puck, followed about 20 seconds later with an elusive move along the boards (on the other side of the ice) preventing a Coyotes player from creaming him. It's like he is one step mentally ahead of everybody else on the ice.
* LA #64 Kyle Clifford had a solid, all around game. With one minor exception...how in the world did he miss that open net at around the 8 minute mark of the second? Man. There was so much space Ivanans could have easily put it in.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. likes to say "Step your game up." The Kings did.
I wonder what kind of shenanigans will be taking place on the bus ride back to Phoenix tonight?
The Mayor
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