Football On Ice (sabres)

Jeff Carter apparently doesn't give a rat's ass about Geno Malkin.

On Friday night, Carter agitated, antagonized and disrespected Malkin in his own house. Carter targeted Malkin and exchanged twig slashes, punches and chirps with the feisty Russian.

That's how the LA Kings have been rolling through the NHL this season.

The give zero sh*ts about you, your team and it's players.

It's as if they have adopted the salty persona of their power forward Milan Lucic.

It's better to beg for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.

The Kings are laying waste to all comers. Night after night they play football on ice. They impose their physical and psychological will on opponents and they win. They play all styles including toe-drags, trap, run-n-gun, and back alley street brawl.

The Kings love to intimidate their opponents by knocking them down and taking their lunch money.

In 29 games played this season, Lucic and his Kings have already delivered 823 hits. That's an average of 29.4 body shots doled out per game.

For a moment, it looked like a Philadelphia vs. Penguins battle from five years ago when the Pens were the most feared team in the NHL and Carter was a grimy Flyer.

Carter touched off a donnybrook of epic, all-star proportions when he slashed Makin on his leg while he was killing a penalty. All Hell broke lose and members of both clubs immediately found dance partners.

It looked like a Team Canada reunion party when Carter, Jeff Carter, and Sidney Crosby decided to Texas Two-Step. Then Phil Kessel showed up to add comic relief. Phil's a lover, of queso and nacho chips and not a fighter.

The German Olympic judge gave Kessel a perfect score of "10" for sticking the dismount on his barrel roll maneuver.

Carter and Malkin sat two minutes each for slashing. Former Buffalo Sabres D Brayden McNabb was assessed a two minute minor for roughing.

The Kings knocked the snot out of the Penguins by landing 47 hits on Malkin, Crosby and the Pens.

The Kings held a 2-1 lead until Geno tied the game with this dart through the heart late in the third period.

The three on three overtime period was fruitless.

Then, Marian Gaborik scored the shootout winner.

Jonathon Quick made 40 save son the 42 shots that he faced.

Look at this beauty.

The Kings have now won six straight games to improve their season record to 19-8-1.

They have scored 72 goals while allowing only 58 goals against.

Darryl Sutter is getting consistent primary, secondary, and tertiary scoring.

Jeff Carter and Tyler Toffoli have 11 goals apeice. Lucic has already scored 10 goals. Anze Kopitar has 8 goals,Marian Gaborik has 5 markers, and Drew Doughty, Tanner Pearson and Alec Martinez have four tallies apiece.

Lucic has been a godsend for the Kings in so many different ways. He hits he fights he makes plays he scores and his very presence on the ice creates a lot of confidence for his teammates in skill players on the bench. If you touch one of Lucia's linemates or his teammates you're going to get a punch you right in the mouth. Lucic is a pending unrestricted free agent and the Kings have already started talking contract extension with his representatives. Smart move. I would love it if buffalo were able to get a shot at Lucic an unrestricted free agency in July. I don't see him hitting the open market.

The Buffalo Sabres better eat their Motrin with whey protein shake chasers tonight because the Kings will come calling for a ruble in Buffalo on Saturday night.

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My guess is that Darryl Sutter will give the Kings net to Jhonas Enroth on Saturday night.

The former Sabre has a 1.71 GAA and .962 save percentage as Quick's under study this season.

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Sabres-Kings 4-1-1:

The last time either the Sabres or the Kings won in the other’s arena* was a 5-1 Sabres victory on Oct. 23, 2003, when the Sabres snapped a six-game winless streak (0-5-1) in road games against the Kings that dated back to March 13, 1996 (6-2 Sabres win). *The Sabres won a road game against the Kings in Berlin, Germany in 2011-12.

Matt Moulson has seven points (3+4) in his last seven games against the Kings.

Ryan O’Reilly (21:52) leads all NHL forwards in average ice time per game and Evander Kane (21:11) ranks third.

The Sabres are 7-for-21 on the power play in their last six games.

Sam Reinhart has five points (1+4) in his last six games, averaging 18:55 of ice time during that stretch. Reinhart has averaged 15:11 per game on the season.

Rasmus Ristolainen has 16 points (6+10) in his last 16 games.

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The Sabres are 12-1-1 (one tie) in their last 14 home games against the Kings, dating back to a 2-0 Sabres win on December 17, 1993. During this stretch, the Sabres have outscored the Kings 59-21 on home ice.

The Kings have not won a game in Buffalo since their 4-1 win at HSBC Arena on February 21, 2003. No players from either team’s roster that day remain on the rosters today.

The Sabres are 6-0-0 at home against Los Angeles since the last Kings win in Buffalo, outscoring the visitors by a combined 31-8 margin in those contests. With a win tonight, the Sabres would extend their streak to six games, extending the longest home-winning streak against the Kings in franchise history.

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Ryan O’Reilly has nine points (2+7) in his last eight games, including at least a point in each of his last six games.

The six-game point streak is O’Reilly’s longest of the season and his longest since a career-best eight game point streak from March 14 to 30, 2015.

With 25 points in the team’s first 29 games of the season, he has already topped his previous best career point total through 30 games (21 points, 2011-12)

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Rasmus Ristolainen scored three goals in the third period on Thursday at Calgary.

At 21 years and 44 days, Ristolainen became the youngest NHL defenseman to score a hat trick since Hannu Virta (19 years old) recorded one for the Sabres on March 19, 1983 at Montreal. The hat trick was the first by a Sabres player since Thomas Vanek in a 7-4 win at Boston on January 31, 2013.

Ristolainen was just the sixth Sabres defenseman to score a hat trick and the first since Phil Housley on January 22, 1988 vs. New Jersey. The others were Phil Housley (2), Jerry Korab, Jim Schoenfeld, John Van Boxmeer and Hannu Virta.

Ristolainen also became the first Sabres player to score three goals in a period since Thomas Vanek (March 19, 2008 vs. Tampa Bay) and the first NHL defenseman to do so since Dustin Byfuglien (Nov. 30, 2007). Only one other Sabres defenseman had ever scored a single-period hat trick (Jerry Korab, November 19, 1978).

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