Matt Greene on Kings v Red Wings, plus tonight's ticket contest

For the Kings, their last visit to Joe Louis Arena wasn't pretty. An 8-2 loss in mid-December stands as perhaps their worst game of the year. However, to be fair, it came just a few days after the firing of Terry Murray - at a time when the team was in limbo wondering what would happen next, while John Stevens stood in as interim coach.

Prior to that game, LA had experienced rather unusual success in a building that's normally tough for most opponents. They were winners of three straight there, including a 5-0 shutout last year that was one of Jonathan Quick's best games in the NHL. He stopped 51 shots that night, something he's not likely to have to repeat tonight.

The Kings will be facing a banged up Detroit team - playing without Nicklas Lidstrom, Jimmy Howard, Pavel Datsyuk, Todd Bertuzzi, Jonathan Ericsson and a few others.

Still, it's the Red Wings. Just ask Matt Greene, who shared the following comments with MayorsManor about tonight's game...

"Detroit in Detroit? It is what it is - everybody knows that. Those aren't easy points," said Greene, who leads all Kings defenseman with 201 hits.

On Wednesday night's MayorsManor LIVE show, Greene talked about what it's like to play in front of friends and family back in Michigan. Dustin Brown also shared his thoughts on the challenges younger players have when going to Detroit for the first time. If you missed the show, you can hear their interviews here.

The Kings are expected to make one line-up change tonight, with Brad Richardson joining the fourth line in place of rookie Jordan Nolan. Last weekend, Richardson took himself for 'first goal' vs. the Ducks - saying he had 'a pretty good feeling about himself.' However, he was a healthy scratch that night, so we'll have to see if his confidence is still in place vs. the Red Wings.

If you'd like to participate in the MayorsManor First Goal contest, we'll be giving away a free pair of tickets to an upcoming Kings home game. It's easy to play, simply leave a comment below with the LA player you think will score first vs. the Red Wings...or reply to the facebook / twitter updates that will be posted around 4:00pm. All correct answers will be pooled together and one random winner will be awarded the tickets. Good luck!

The Mayor
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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.

NHL All Star Game Mock Draft with Matt Greene

Kings defenseman was Matt Greene was the 44th overall pick back at the 2002 NHL Draft. So, he knows all about waiting around to be selected.

Right now, he's probably half way to Pioneertown (story here). However, before he left we did a mock draft for this weekend's NHL All Star Game.

Like the mock drafted posted earlier today with Drew Doughty, we only took one goalie, two defensemen and three forwards from the pool of available players (excluding Anze Kopitar, due to them being teammates).

Perhaps displaying a bit of the brain power he put to use at the University of North Dakota, Greene carefully thought about each selection and provided commentary along the way.

When selecting his first forward he said "I'll take Stamkos. He scores a lot."

Then, he started talking strategy, after noting that he already has a center he added "I'll go with Giroux at wing."

NHL All Star Game Mock Draft with Drew Doughty

All Star Games in every sport have become boring.

We all know it.

If the game is in your city, it's a great experience - as it was here in Los Angeles in 2002...a weekend filled with legends of the game everywhere, the fan fest, a skills competition, etc.

However, the game itself isn't much to get pumped for unless you're there live. Even the honor of being selected to play doesn't seem to mean what it once did, with more and more athletes finding reasons to have a mini-vacation instead of attending the event with their peers.

Major League Baseball attempted to give theirs a little umph a few years ago by affixing a meaningful prize to the winning league - home field advantage in the playoffs. Sounds great on the surface, but it's hard for fans to invest emotionally in July for an outcome that may or may not mean something to their team three months later. Not to mention the nonsensical correlation between a team gaining such a critical advantage for a championship series by an All Star team victory.

This year the NHL takes its turn at trying to spice things up a bit and I love what they've done.

The game will probably be the same, perhaps only slightly better.

However, there is much more intrigue leading up to tonight than in any All Star Game of recent memory.

At 5pm PST the All Star Draft will get underway on live TV. If you haven't heard, gone is the Western Conference vs. Eastern Conference format. Instead, each team has been assigned a captain (Nicklas Lidstrom of the Detroit Red Wings and Eric Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes) and three assistants. All other players have been put in a general pool and one by one they'll be selected to their teams, just like kids on a school yard or frozen pond.

With that in mind, I sat down with a few Kings players to do a mock draft before they all went their separate ways this weekend.  First up, defenseman Drew Doughty.

Shane Doan Would Pick Kopitar at NHL All-Star Draft

Anze Kopitar received some recent praise from one of the most respected captains in the league...

Friday afternoon Shane Doan of the Phoenix Coyotes was a guest on The PowerPlay (NHL Radio show) and they were talking about the fact that the Coyotes didn't have any players selected to attend this year's NHL All-Star Game.

Which, if you're looking for a positive, means Doan doesn't have to worry about potentially being the last player selected in this Friday's All-Star Draft (note: the NHL is using a new format this year, where two captains actually hand pick their teams in a televised special airing live this coming Friday).

On the other hand, the hosts wanted to know - hypothetically, if Doan was one of the captains picking the teams , who would be some of the players he'd pick earlier than people might expect?

He responded with "I think Kopitar is an incredible player. I think he'd be a guy that would go high. He's so talented. I like Jonathan Toews and Danny Briere too. Obviously, everybody is going to be picking them high as well. But, Anze Kopitar is as good as there is when it comes to young guys in the league. If his team was doing a little better, he'd be getting the attention he deserves."

In reality, the All-Star Game captains will be Nicklas Lidstrom (Detroit Red Wings) and Eric Staal (Carolina Hurricanes).

And yes, it will be interesting to see who selects Kopitar...and when.

[UPDATE: Wonder who Kopitar would pick? Click here to see the talented center take on The Mayor in a mock draft]

The Mayor
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Hockey's Most Exclusive Club

Vancouver, BC - Most of the best hockey players on the planet have descended upon Vancouver this month. Most are here to play in the Olympics. Some are here to watch, having played before.

Twenty two of those players were honored earlier tonight for their accomplishments.

This wasn't just any group through and this wasn't your normal awards ceremony. These 22 were here because out of the more than 4,000 hockey players that have skated at the Olympics, these 22 have won the gold. Out of the more than 9,000 players that have tried to win the Stanley Cup, they've done that too. And although more than 15,000 players that have tried to win an IIHF gold medal, this group has one of those as well.

It's a small club. Just 22 members. Each of them having achieved the ultimate hat trick, putting them all into the Triple Gold Club.

With only 22 members it has to be the toughest team in hockey to be part of. The group reads like a who's who of every great game or series you can probably remember. Guys like Brendan Shanahan, Peter Forsberg and Nicholas Lidstrom. Igor Larionov, Rob Blake and Nicklas Lidstrom are members too. Need more? How about - Henrik Zetterberg, Chris Pronger or Jaromir Jagr...they were all there too.

During the ceremony at Molson's Hockey House, in the shadows of the arena hosting this year's Olympic hockey action, each player received a customized Triple Gold Club jersey, a Tissot watch with his name engraved and a special membership pin.

According to the IIHF, there are 42 active players who have won two of the three titles.

Six of those 42 are here in Vancouver looking for a gold medal to complete their entry into hockey's most exclusive club - Eric Staal (Canada); Pavel Kubina and Josef Vasicek (Czech Republic); Jere Lehtinen (Finland) and Sergei Fedorov and Ilya Bryzgalov (Russia).

Guess we'll know by Sunday night if the club is expanding.

The Mayor
www.twitter.com/Mayor119

For more Olympics coverage on MayorsManor - including some exclusive pictures - simply type OLYMPICS in the search box near the top left corner of this page.