Quotes from Ducks locker room after 4-2 loss to Kings

Visnovsky, Ducks defenseman (photo: Ikiri)

With both teams fighting for their playoff lives, Anaheim may have just seen their faint hopes of post-season play fall by the wayside. An early goal by Kings captain Dustin Brown, a pair from newly acquired Jeff Carter and Jonathan Quick in net was more than enough to shut down the Ducks offense.

You can't really fault the visiting team for trying though - they outshot LA 31-20, won the battle at the faceoff circle (52% vs 48%), plus were neck-and-neck with hits (29 to 31) and blocked shots (10 to 9). The difference was special teams, where the Kings picked up a pair of goals and the Ducks came away empty-handed.

And that was one of the key themes back in the locker room following their third loss of the season in LA...

Ryan Getzlaf on the overall game - "It’s a tough one. You know what, we’re pretty disappointed in this locker room, mostly with our effort. We weren’t as good as we needed to be to play tonight. They came out and played a strong game, and we didn’t respond the way we needed to, especially our special teams."

Getzlaf addresses if their playoff hopes gone - "No, we’re excited. We’re excited to play every night and excited to get back in this thing, and working hard to get there. We lost the special teams battle tonight, and that was the difference in the hockey game...There’s no doubt in here that we can still make this thing happen...Our group tonight has never stopped believing this whole time, and we’re not going to now."

Lubomir Visnovsky on the overall game - "Right now, we go like one, two wins, and two losses, and we go up and down. This is a very tough time for us. We need more wins. It’s hard to say something."

Quotes from the Ducks locker room after 3-2 loss to LA

Although it's tough to call a game in December a big win, tonight was about as big of a win as the Kings have had all season. They wanted to start off the Darryl Sutter era with a win and they did just that, downing the Ducks 3-2 in a shootout.

Anaheim hasn't won on the road since October and after the game, both coach Bruce Boudreau and captain Ryan Getzlaf seemed to be looking for moral victories in tonight's loss...

Boudreau on the overall game - "I thought for sure when we got that power play in the overtime that it was going to happen. It didn’t. Then they got it and I thought ‘uh-oh, this is what usually happens’ and then when we killed that off I thought ‘I don’t care, we are going to win it in the shootout.’ I mean, the shootout is a crapshoot—anything can happen with it. Overall, I hate to keep saying it, but I thought we played pretty solid. The difference between winning and losing is sometimes just the attitude and believing that you are going to win or believing you are going to lose."

Boudreau on the Ducks power play - "The play we drew it up there was the first one and it was a near miss. What I couldn’t understand is why they didn’t go back and try it again because they play was open and it was there and you have options off it but I’ll talk to the guys and we’ll see the day after Christmas."

Kings at Ducks pregame primer - will it be number 1 or 500?

Tonight is the third game of the six-game series between the Kings and Ducks.

Since they met up for a pair of games last month, Anaheim fired their former coach (Randy Carlyle) and replaced him with Bruce Boudreau - who had previously coached the Washington Capitals.

A few years prior, Boudreau worked for the Kings and coached their minor league affiliate in Manchester. His final season there, he had a team featuring Dustin Brown, George Parros and Mike Cammalleri. They won 51 games during the regular season and lost in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth straight year. That was the end of Boureau in Manch.

While in Washington, Boudreau faced the Kings four times and lost every one of them.

He's also yet to win behind the bench in Anaheim, dropping his first two games.

So, tonight he'll be seeking his first win with the Ducks and his first win vs. the Kings.

On the other bench, LA coach Terry Murray is looking for his 500th win as an NHL coach.