Contrary to what you might think after reading the score from the game in LA Thursday night, the Kings didn’t have to “figure out” a way to beat the Anaheim Ducks. Instead, they just went out and beat them, 3-1 by the end, in every way possible. Their doing so might suggest two things: that the Kings are better than their record indicates, and that there is a way to beat Anaheim, something that as many as four teams might want to copy come playoff time.

In fact, Los Angeles is having a decent run over the past few weeks. Their record, at 20-29-2, includes a recent steak of five wins in seven games, and eight wins in their last thirteen.

Thursday night, they went out hard from the start. The hits in period one were eleven to six in their favor, and the shots fourteen to nine. They took the puck away from Anaheim four times (the Ducks didn’t have any steals), and the only area where they were weak was faceoffs, which they lost three times to every one win. It didn’t matter, since they exited the period up 1-0 (but for a split second—the Ducks scored right at the 20:00 mark, a goal that was disallowed due to time having expired. The play was reviewed).

In the second frame, the Kings kept up their mastery on the ice, playing bigger than the Ducks. Though the stats evened out (hits were 17-16 Ducks, shots 26-25 Kings at the end of two), the difference was that the LA squad handled the puck more, and they didn’t give up momentum. The period ended 3-0 Kings, but what was momentous was that the third goal put starter JS Giguere on the bench in favor of Jonas Hiller.

Though it’s hard to quantify, fans can see it when a team has confidence. After the game, Coach Marc Crawford said the following: “Tonight it was about everybody being ready to contribute and contribute in all fashions. In the toughness department, I thought we threw a couple of big hits, a couple of good battles, a couple of good fights. I thought that the battles in front of the net were strong; we were strong on loose pucks. We wanted the puck tonight and we got a contribution from throughout our lineup. When you get that, you have a good game, and that was a good game for us.”

His players never lost their composure, never took a dumb penalty, and never did what they have too much this year—made glaring mistakes, especially on defense.

In the third, nothing much changed, numbers-wise. The hits finished 23-22 Ducks, the shots 32-31 Ducks, and the takeaways 5-1 LA. Faceoffs almost evened out at the end, with the Ducks winning 32 and losing 30 to register 52 percent.

OK, so from both sides, why?

What probably can’t be discounted is that Anaheim played Wednesday night, losing to Detroit, and that the game versus LA was a road contest. But given the fact that the distance from the OC to Staples is negligible and the further fact that the Ducks always bring a healthy contingent of fans with them to their games in LA, the only thing that might have figured was fatigue. In back-to-back games this season, they are 9-9-1. The Kings, for comparison purposes, are 4-5 in similar situations this year. They last played, and lost, Tuesday, to Detroit.

As for that lesson for the four teams that might face the Ducks, should Anaheim go all the way to the Finals this year, it’s simple—play their game. Maybe Sun Tsu wouldn’t agree, advising instead that a team play its own game. I’ll have to brush up on my “Art of War” and get back to you. But no team in the playoffs last year, except perhaps Minnesota at times, took the physical stuff to Anaheim. Ottawa, certainly, didn’t have any presence on the ice, partly due to the makeup of their team, and partly due to their over-confidence.

In LA, the Ducks were smacked around from one side of the ice to the other. The Kings delivered hard checks, they played tough in front of the net, and their thug lost a fight, though not badly, to the Kings’ enforcer.

Near the end of the game, Brad Stuart delivered a hard but legal check to Travis Moen, something several Ducks players took offense at. Stuart said afterwards, “That’s their team. They stickup for each other and they try to send a message, maybe not for this game but the next one that you take runs at our players and we’re going to stand up. That’s something that we should do too, and so I don’t think it matters whether [the hit] is clean or not, they’re going to respond”

Read through the quote and it will tell you something. The Ducks are like any bunch of tough guys who get tossed around. They’re not just going to take it without protest. Whether they can really do anything about it is another question. Thursday night, they couldn’t. By the end, they weren’t exactly bowed, and they were nowhere close to broken, but they were stood up with the puck, and not allowed to get their skill game going. Their passing was thus not sharp, and their streaking offense, which can take over a zone, simply didn’t.

So where does this leave each team? Anaheim is on a three-game losing streak heading to the All-Star break. They’ve dropped games to Dallas, Detroit, and LA. And in those three, they’ve scored just four goals, while their opponents have ten.

This tells potential opponents that the Anaheim strategy, which apparently consists of having the best defense in history and then counting on winning every game 1-0, isn’t necessarily the key to success, since they are capable of being tapped for multiple goals.

Coming out of the break, they will play eight games on the road. How they do in that stretch will tell the tale as to whether the real team is the one that started the year sub-.500 or the one which won twelve of sixteen games (with two overtime losses thrown in) in the immediate aftermath of Scott Niedermayer’s return.

LA for its part is still hopelessly out of contention, and nothing they do short of a miracle run is going to change that. And it’s tempting, with the team not going to the playoffs, for fans to say, “Heck, might as well play for a draft choice,” but that’s apparently not the plan.

Instead, the Kings are going to battle all the way to the end, every game. And in the course of that, they apparently plan to give their up-and-comers lots of chances to learn the NHL way.

As to the future of the youngsters on the squad, Coach Marc Crawford said Thursday night, “When you get [good] contributions from young guys coming up and showing that they want to be a part of the future of the Kings, then that’s really exciting,” which suggests that the goal of developing the youth in the organization is going ahead full-steam. “Our players are getting excited to have more youth in our group, and they’re playing hard.”

He gave Teddy Purcell nearly 12:30 of ice time in which to work himself into NHL form, and the kid responded with an assist on the game-winning goal. It was a saucer pass over to a breaking Derek Armstrong, described by Crawford this way, “That was a big-time pass that Teddy Purcell made on his backhand across the ice flat over a stick to land flat so that Armstrong could put it in the yawning cage.”

The Kings will go on the road after the All-Star break to play eight games, the first against Philadelphia. Anze Kopitar said about that game, “I’m sure nobody’s going to forget this, this win. Everybody’s going to be ready on Tuesday.”

Of course, he has another contest to perform well in before then, as he’ll be an All-Star in Atlanta. But his summary of the Kings’ play says a lot: “A big part of it is confidence here, because all the forwards feel that if we get in their zone, we can create chances.”

It will be worth huddling next to the TV for the next couple of weeks to see whether, indeed, the team can continue to do what they did against the Ducks.

Kings Notes
Injury updates on three key players came from the Coach after the game, who said, “It doesn’t look like Cammalleri will be back immediately; it doesn’t look like Nagy will even go on the trip. Willsie is probably the closest, and he’s probably still a little bit away.”

Brian Kennedy will be reading from and signing his book Growing Up Hockey on Monday at Vroman’s bookstore in Pasadena. See www.growinguphockey.com for details or to share your hockey stories.