LA Kings vs Flyers - what to watch for... with Ian Laperriere

Talk show host Jim Rome likes to joke that if you're fortunate enough to spend 15 minutes with quarterback Tim Tebow, your life is better for it. Earlier this week, I tweeted an update to that expression...'If you're lucky enough to spend five minutes with Ian Laperriere, your life is better for it.'

There's probably nobody in hockey I'd rather speak with. He offers zero cliches and no b.s., just raw emotion and straight ahead honesty.

Sure, several players, both past and present, are universally liked. However, if you look hard enough, you can usually find a small pool of people who dislike certain guys - for whatever reason, logical or not.

Lappy is different. And he has been since he first arrived in Los Angeles in 1996. You show me one person who has EVER had a bad thing to say about him and that will be the first.

The guy is as real as they come.

He's been on MayorsManor a number of times, including his still popular guest spot on the podcast last November and again earlier this summer - when he stopped by to set the record straight about Mike Richards, in the days following the big LA-Philadelphia trade.

With the Flyers hosting the Kings tonight, who could possibly be better to kick off our 'what to watch for' segment today?

Here he is, the one and only...

MM: Philadelphia is known for being a great sports town. Yet, the fans can be tough. What type of reaction do you expect them to give Richards when he comes out of the locker room for the first time?

NHL Premiere: LA Kings vs NY Rangers pre-game notes, first goal contest

Hang on, relax. You only have less than an hour to go and you'll be just fine...hockey will be back!

To get you primed and ready to go, here are some quick tidbits on the Los Angeles Kings vs New York Rangers match-up. Also, be sure to take note of the details for today's 'first goal contest' listed at the end of this article.

- Kings all-time Record against the Rangers: 43-62-19. This is the only meeting between the two teams this season, as it was last year. When they squared off on February 17, 2011, the Rangers won in a shootout 4-3. Dustin Brown picked up two points that night and the Kings collected another point on their nearly-month-long road trip (post-game notes and highlights from that game can be accessed here).

- Rangers defeneman Marc Staal, one of their top defensemen, didn't make the trip to Europe due to lingering symptoms from the concussion he sustained in a game last year.

- Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist is from Sweden and earlier in his career played in the Frolunda HC system - the same organization that Kings' 2011 draft pick Michael Schumacher was part of last year (article).

- At least four former NHL players to suit up for both the Kings and Rangers will be in attendance - Luc Robitaille, Mattis Norstrom, Tomas Sandstrom and Bernie Nicholls.

- Richards vs. Richards: In 23 career games vs. the LA Kings, Brad Richards has 26 goals (seven goals, 19 assists). On the other side, Mike Richards has played 37 games against the New York Rangers, picking up 12 goals and 11 assists.

Kings at Pens By the Numbers, plus Video Highlights

Although Kings coach Terry Murray declined to share his point goal for the road trip prior to the team leaving for Pittsburgh, I'll stand by my previous mark of 15 points in the 10 games played before they return to Staples Center on February 24.

They picked up a point tonight, losing to the Penguins with less than 20-seconds remaining in overtime. Put simply, they left an extra point on the ice.

So, they're off to Washington with six points in the books after four games.

Here's a breakdown of the game's other key numbers, followed by some video highlights...

0 goals from Anze Kopitar now in the last 10 games

1 goal could have been scored by Alexei Ponikarovsky, if only he got the puck up

2 shots by the Kings in the entire second period

3 more penalty kills by Pittsburgh, the league's best PK unit

5 penalty minutes each for Wayne Simmonds and Kevin Westgarth

7 straight games with points for the Kings (5-0-2)

9 points needed in the remaining six road games to reach the 15 point goal

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 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]

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