Closing the Book on October

The season is moving along fast, with the first month wrapping up tonight. While last night's game in San Jose left a certain sense of satisfaction - even though the Kings lost in a shootout - tonight's game ended with a sense of disappointment.

This was a home game and the visiting Canucks were playing without their mega-star goaltender Roberto Luongo. The Kings needed to find a way to grab two points. You can't really lay blame on their performance though. Come on, they were playing the second game on back to back nights. Defensively they looked very strong. Heck, they even out shot Vancouver 31-15. How do you double up your opponent like that and lose the game? It's a head scratcher.

Other thoughts as we close out October:

• Last weekend I posted the 10 Tidbits on Scott Parse article. If you didn't read it at the time, go back and check it out. This guy has been a breath of fresh air for the team. He's played solid in every game since being called up. While averaging about 12 minutes of ice time in his four games, he has 3 points and is a plus 1. Tonight was the big one - his first NHL goal!


• College update: Two weeks ago the Kings were already ahead of the NHL mean with a roster loaded full of former college hockey players. Since then, they've added Scott Parse (University of Nebraska-Omaha) and ANOTHER college d-man, Randy Jones (Clarkson University). That's nine guys now on the starting roster with college hockey backgrounds. Incredibly, that's five college d-men, six if you include Harrold. Read about the Kings collection of college players vs. the NHL average by clicking here.


• Point Break: If you break the season down into 10 game chunks, the Kings need to average about 11 points per 10 games (explained here). After the first 10 of the new season the team had 12 points, slightly ahead of what's needed. Four more games have been played since then, with the Kings picking up six points. Meaning - in the next six games (@ Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Nashville, @ Chicago, @ Carolina, @ Atlanta) they need to pick up five points to keep pace. Sounds very doable if the team continues to play at the same level of the last week or so.


• The top line - Smyth/Kopitar/Simmonds - was held scoreless for the second straight game. The trend should end in Phoenix Monday night. I'll take Smyth in any "first goal" pools out there.


• This weekend the Kings will be home practicing at TSC in El Segundo. You think they'll be practicing one-on-one shootout type drills?

The Mayor

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