Three games, three different Kings teams. The season has been unpredictable, if nothing else. Saturday was a terrible 60 minutes of hockey. Tuesday was the tale of two games and Thursday the team hit the ice like they were shot out of a cannon. Throughout the home stand Jim Fox has been stopping by with his Highs and Lows from each game. He's back with a look at look at the Kings performance vs. the Wild...
HIGHS -
- Top players playing like your top players, coaches love when that happens.
- It’s been a while, but the Kings look like they have a #1 line with Kopitar/Smyth and Williams…the chemistry between Kopitar and Smyth has been impressive…Smyth’s passing continues to be right on.
- Jack Johnson with 20:52 TOI and +2 is looking like he is ready to take it up a notch.
- Once again the Handzus checking line ends up plus at the end of the night, while Koivu (-2) and Havlat (-3) were kept under control.
- Biggest improvement came from the 2nd line with Stoll/Brown/Purcell - effective all night on the fore-check and all 3 connecting for a big goal in the 3rd…Brown led all players with 6 hits.
LOWS -
- The continued inability of the penalty-kill to protect the slot was apparent once again…the “pressure rotation” is off right now…it did get better in the 3rd, but it has a long way to go.
- It's almost impossible to control the full 60 minutes in an NHL game (the other team is usually a pretty good team too), but there are still lapses that take the Kings out of sync at times…didn’t see much of that all last year and that “intangible” will have to be cleaned up.
And they're off...the Kings and crew are headed to St. Louis for a match up tomorrow against their former coach, Andy Murray. It will be a battle between two teams fighting for one of the three playoff spots up for grabs in the West this year.
On behalf of all Kings fans, I'd like to give a big thanks to Jim for his contributions this week. He has plenty on his plate as it is and making the time to be a featured guest here at MayorsManor.com was much appreciated. Although the High/Low series has featured Mark Hardy and Terry Murray to name a few...Jim was the first to get the High/Low hat trick with his three articles. Thanks Jim!
What do you think of the Kings so far? Leave a comment below with your reaction to the game(s) and/or Jim's thoughts on how the Kings looked against Minnesota.
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