If you had told most people (even the biggest Kings fans) that the Kings would have a 3-0 lead against the Canucks with Luongo in goal after the 1st period, they would have thought you were nuts. A 5-2 lead after 2 periods with Luongo still in goal? Again… that’s craziness. Right? Apparently not as much as we would have thought.

The Kings won the game 8-3 and scored every one of their goals against Luongo. Only two of the Kings’ goals were on the power play (and they couldn’t score in the two man advantage). This means that the Kings scored 6 even strength goals against the Roberto Luongo. Even without Daniel Sedin, the Canucks have a lot of fire power. Henrik Sedin is the number one scorer in the NHL (with 104 points going into tonight’s game). The Canucks actually outshot the Kings 30-29, though they could only get 3 pucks by Jonathan Bernier. Dustin Brown got a hat trick and the Kings looked great at home for the first time since the Olympic break. They’ve had a bit of a rough time since the Olympic break, though they’d played well on the road to beat the Nashville Predators (just two points ahead of the Kings in the standings, having played 2 more games) for the first time in years. The team brought that intensity home with them to treat their sold out Staples Center (not full, of course, but the announced attendance was 18,118 – their 21st sellout of the season) to their first win against the Canucks in a little over a year (they’d lost 5 in a row and hadn’t beaten the Canucks since March 13, 2009).

This is the team the Kings fans remember. This team is ready to head into the playoffs and show up to every game playing hard. I’m sure some Kings fans were a bit concerned that their team might drop out of playoff contention the way they played their last home game (and some of the games before that), but I doubt even the most skeptical fan could be worried at this point. The Kings are going back to the playoffs for the first time in years and the fans are ready to root for their team. Many of the players on the Kings (including their captain, Dustin Brown) haven’t played a single NHL playoff game and they can’t wait! When asked which year was better (the year where he scored over 30 goals or this year with 21 and counting), Dustin Brown didn’t hesitate. He said he’d definitely choose a year with only 10 goals if they were in the playoffs and stressed that it’s a team sport. Their shirts advertise the idea that they’re only there for one reason and clearly the Kings are back behind that idea.

On a lighter note... as a big fan of bobbleheads, I was thrilled to see the Kings win tonight. They were 0-1-2 in bobblehead games this season. Now, they can say they’re 1-1-2, which by current standards is .500, right? Hopefully, there will be more Kings bobbleheads next season. Thanks to the overwhelming victory last night and the close games for the first three bobblehead nights, the Kings actually outscored their opponents 16-14 in the four bobblehead games, though they lost 3 of the 4. Soon, we’ll be able to point out that the first time the Kings made the playoffs since 2002 was the year they decided to hand out bobbleheads at games. That can’t hurt the odds of seeing them again in Staples Center. ;-)

Kat

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To read more of my thoughts on the NHL and other sports, check out Press Box Perspective.

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