Well that's a wide variety of things to take in just looking at the title right? I've been absent from the blog a few days and the hockey world never ceases to pile up stories, especially as we get closer to the start of the season. Which guys, it's now less than a week away! I love October for four reasons: Start of hockey season, baseball playoffs, seasonal beers, and a nice cool and crisp change to the weather.
Let's talk about hockey though.
So the King's annual trip to Las Vegas and the MGM Grand for Frozen Fury is underway. Things will kick off tonight in the 16,000+ arena against the New York Rangers. Instead of playing one game, as they usually do, the Kings are going to play the Rangers and the Avalanche this year on back to back nights. Should make for a fun atmosphere for the fans...except that second game I would wager that at least a quarter of the crowd will be hungover. These are the final two games of preseason for the Kings as they will not play again until next Thursday when the season opens in Minnesota. Lucky for us who didn't make the trek out to the strip, tonights game will be shown on the NHL Network and KCOP channel 13 (If you're local LA) at 7:30.
Frozen Fury, which is now going on its 15th year, has been wildly popular and includes a King celebrity poker tournament, pool event, and yes, hockey. Personally I've never been but I hear it's absolutely great and I definitely plan on checking it out in the future.
This video made the rounds a few years ago, and while I don't condone the outright abuse of opposing fans, this gives you an idea of the atmosphere:
Speaking of abuse, did anyone catch that whole thing with the guy from Toronto who wanted to be a lumberjack? Oh yea, Phil Kessel is his name.
Everyone else is tossing their hat into this arena so I might as well also. I'm just going to go ahead and say it, I don't agree at all with the league discipline. I think Kessel got off very easy and is incredibly fortunate to have only been suspended for three glorified scrimmages, and not be knocked salary or regular season games. I won't go on a tirade about how the league is losing my respect or the whole "Spin the wheel of justice" thing, because it's a difficult job and I don't envy these guys at all. It's simply this man's opinion that they got it completely wrong. While Scott initiated the fight and you could almost argue Kessel was justified in the first hack...the second was uncalled for and the spear was absolutely disgusting. Keep in mind that Kessel had two other seperate slashing incidents against the Flyers no more than a week prior. Get it together Kessel, this is hockey and not the Great Outdoor Games. The minute we allow players to go unpunished for using a stick as a weapon, well, things can get nasty.
I'm sure King fans don't want to remember this given what a fan favorite McSorely was but lack of control of the stick in an emotional situation is NOT something that is new to injuring people.
Obviously this Kessel situation was not as severe, but the intent to injure was there. Someone had to draw a line in the sand with that one and bring at least a regular season suspension against Kessel and the ball was dropped. Oh well though. The past is the past and we move on. It could have ended a lot worse than it did surely. At least we got to see Bernier fight.
Back to the Kings, the team cut...er...I'm sorry, LOANED, several players to Manchester over the last week as they continued to narrow down opening night rosters. Why loaned? Because,
Don’t say ‘cut.’ I don’t like that word ‘cut.’ They’re our players, and we were really pleased with them, quite honest.
Source
If Darryl Sutter tells me not to say it, I won't. Anyways, the Kings have loaned former first-round defenseman Derek Forbort, impressive collegiate center Nick Shore, and defenseman Andrew Bodnarchuk to Manchester. Bodnarchuk had to clear waivers and in all likelihood will.
That leaves only a few young guys left. Who? Toffoli, Vey, Pearson. With all three eligable for a return to Manchester and an absolutely stacked roster the writing seems to be on the wall. Not helping the situation either is the impressive play of Dwight King, who was a moose the other night against Anaheim on the top line, and Jordan Nolan looked very good also. Who knows though, all three have been impressive enough to stick at this point. The next loans will come after the weekend in Vegas.
Nick Shore in particular had a tremendous camp, and coming in I'm not sure a lot of people respected how good he really was. He's had a dynamite NCAA career as a two-way center and at this point looks more like a natural future replacement for Jarret Stoll on the third line than Linden Vey. That should be a real interesting battle in the future, and if Vey is sent down then you are likely looking at those two being the one-two tandem at center for the Monarchs. So overall a really good camp for Nick Shore, I think he turned a lot of heads. This will be a big year in the minors for him and I know I will be watching him closely.
And finally, that Dustin Brown, captain, Stanley Cup Champion, twitter troll? I think so.
In the midst of intense roster spot battles and a knee injury Brown sends out this mysterious and cryptic tweet two days ago after leaving practice early...
Let the insanity begin! Immediately people assumed the worst about Dustin Brown's knee, but alas it was only the birth of a new child. Definitely one of those fun moments of knee jerk twitterverse reactions. But hey, twitter also gives us things like this which gave me a good chuckle:
Congrats to the Brown family for the new addition, and a serious kudos to their timing...didn't even have to miss any games!
I'm sure I will have some game updates during or after the weekend passes, so sit back and enjoy another King preseason game on T.V. tonight folks!