Quotes from the Vancouver locker room after 4-1 loss to LA

New Years Eve had not been kind to the Los Angeles Kings, who had an all-time record of 5-8-3 on the usually festive night. Curiously, they had only hosted one of those games. Back in 1991 - at their former home, the Forum in Inglewood - the Kings led 3-0 entering the third period and then watched their opponent score five unanswered goals on goalie Daniel Berthiaume. Who did they play that night? The Vancouver Canucks.

So, it may have taken 20 years for the rematch, but it finally happened last night in downtown LA. The results weren't nearly the same. Vancouver scored the first goal of the game, then it was all Kings. They out shot the Canucks 33-28 and scored the next four goals of the game.

Afterwards, here's what head coach Alain Vigneault and team captain Henrik Sedin had to say...

Vigneault on the overall game - "I think you have to give LA a lot of credit. Both teams had basically the same schedule here for the last little while, but they seemed to have more jump and more energy and obviously better execution than we had tonight. They deserved to win. We tried to make a push in the second [period]. We had that four-minute power play that could have been a turning point in the game and we didn’t generate much. After that, they pretty much made it 3-1 and it was real tough coming back."

Top Ten NHL All Star Game Tweets

That's it. The 2011 NHL All Star Game is over.

Team Lidstrom came back from being down 4-0 in the first period to defeat Team Staal 11-10. Patrick Sharp was voted the game's MVP and the Kings' Anze Kopitar had two goals.

Kudos to all the changes the NHL put in place this year, especially the draft on Friday night. Overall, it was a great weekend.

As for the game itself, well - leave it to the fine people on twitter to bring some unexpected humor to things. Here are my ten eleven favorite tweets that appeared during the game on Sunday afternoon...

@DaveLozo - So clearly someone needs to drop the gloves for Team Lidstrom. (note: this was after they went up 3-0)

@Real_ESPNLeBrun - Fleury thinks it's the second round of the playoffs vs. Montreal

@LAKingsGM - #NHLAllStarGame made me realize that every #NHL team should have 1 Sedin. #cloning

Kopitar vs. Ovechkin at Super Skills Event

In a few short hours the second wave of this year's NHL All Star Weekend will get underway with the popular Super Skills Competition.

Team captains Nicklas Lidstrom and Eric Staal met with Brendan Shanahan, NHL Vice President of Hockey and Business Development, earlier this morning to determine which of their players would participate in each event.

Last night, the Kings' Anze Kopitar was selected by Lidstrom in the 15th round (30th overall) of the All Star Fantasy Draft. He now knows which events his team captain has assigned him to...

First, he'll be part of a three-man unit (also comprised of Florida's Evgeny Dadonov and Vancouver's Henrik Sedin) taking part in the Breakaway Challenge.

Fans at home will be allowed to vote on the winner of this event - something that will certainly be needed for Kopitar's group, as they're taking on Alexander Ovechkin (the two-time defending champion of this event), Corey Perry and PK Suban.

NHL All Star Game Mock Draft with Anze Kopitar

In a little less than an hour hockey fans everywhere will be treated to something truly unique.

This year's NHL All Star teams will be selected by Nicklas Lidstrom (Detroit Red Wings) and Eric Staal (Carolina Hurricanes) in a live television draft.

The pre-event storylines are abundant - will the Sedin twins be slit up? Will teammates, like Pittsburgh's Kris Letang and Marc Andre Fleury, end up on separate sides? Will Staal take fellow Hurricanes Cam Ward and Jeff Skinner? Will Lidstrom draft a heavy-Western Conference team?

It's a situation where the questions are near endless.

Yet, for the Kings' Anze Kopitar, the process will relatively stress free.  He doesn't have another guys from LA with him - so no separation anxiety here or possible hits from Jack Johnson to concern himself with. It's only been a few weeks since Slovenia even had a second player in the NHL (Jan Mursak of the red Wings). Thus, he won't be worrying about national pride when lacing up the skates this weekend either.

Perhaps the only thing on his mind right now is will he be the last player selected? A shame that nobody wanted as a kid, nor even sounds appealing to a professional athlete making millions of dollars. Regardless of circumstance, that's embarrassing.

Revisiting The Hockey News Curse

After a red hot start to the 2009-10 season Anze Kopitar was the toast of the league. People everywhere were taking notice that the 2005 first round draft pick was having a breakout year.

Then, it happened. The Hockey News slapped him on the cover and poof, that was it. Instant slump.

Now, before you discount this theory, continue reading. The proof is here. Let it marinate for a minute or two.

When first tackling this issue in January we pointed out several examples of injuries (Joe Sakic, Luke Schenn, Roberto Luongo), poor playoff performances (Joe Thornton, Zdeno Chara) and slumps (Chris Pronger, John Tavares and Michael Del Zotto) linked to players soon after appearing on the cover of the popular magazine.

Sure, Kopitar eventually broke out of his post-cover slump (just five points in 12 games). In fact, about six hours after I wrote the original curse article he went on to post two points against San Jose - his first multi-point night in 23 games. That's a quarter of the season!

The flood gates were open though. In the remaining 18 games leading up to the Olympic break he scored 21 points. Fine, case closed. Or so we thought...