Monday January 13: Los Angeles Kings 1 Vancouver Canucks 0
The Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings do not like each other, and the two teams let it show when they lined up for a penalty-filled affair on Monday night at Staples Center. If you missed it, here are the highlights:
It's a game that needed to be seen to be believed, with buckets of emotion and plenty of dirty play on both sides.
To start off, let's hear from you:
I thought we'd see a physical game, but I worried that the nastiness could go over-the-top. Here's what I said in yesterday's preview:
I don't want to see the Canucks start doing dumb things and taking unnecessary penalties, but I'd definitely like to see some sandpaper in their game tonight. Fight back against Los Angeles!
It took just nine seconds for me to start trying to assess whether the Canucks were being suitably aggressive or aggressively stupid, when Zack Kassian was sent off for hooking Dustin Brown. Great—Kassian was jawing with Brown at the opening face off, letting him know he was going to be in for a rough night. But really—how much toughness does it take to slide your stick between a guy's legs and put your opponent on the power play? Instantly, the surly mindset put the Canucks in a hole.
Same thing for Tom Sestito. Yes—great idea making Jordan Nolan accountable for his unpenalized attempt to hit Henrik Sedin, who managed to duck out of the way at the last second. But attacking Nolan to such an extent that you chalk up 27 minutes in penalties and get thrown out of the game after exactly ONE second on the ice? Do we really have to go that far?
Former NHL ref Paul Stewart has a very insightful blog up this morning that covers the details of Sestito's penalty and breaks down Dale Weise's unpenalized slew-foot on Drew Doughty. Click here if you haven't read it already.
The early shenanigans made it tough for the Canucks to get a chance to play hockey, but Weise's play on Doughty and his blatant third-period goaltender interference penalty on Jonathan Quick were the kind of brainless attacks that will rally the haters. Get ready for another round of "Canucks are Most-Hated" headlines.
I was happy to see Ryan Kesler take on Dustin Brown at the start of the second period. Brown's the lightning rod after the Luongo injury last time the Canucks were in L.A. The dynamic is especially bizarre when you think the two will be lining up as teammates in Sochi in just a few weeks. But even there, Brown got the last laugh—once again scoring early in a period to seal the win for his team.
Despite the loss, Torts seemed happy with his team's effort:
As for me, not so much. When you know you have trouble scoring goals against the Kings, I just don't think you can put yourself in a position where you're killing penalties for almost the entire first period—no matter how strong your penalty kill. The best revenge would have been a win that allowed the Canucks to overtake the Kings in the standings. Instead, they're now four points back with virtually no chance to beat the still-undefeated-at-home Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday.
Quick Hits:
- It was great to see Alex Edler back in the lineup after missing six weeks with his knee injury. He "eased" back in with 21:55 of ice time and used his body well, leading the Canucks with six hits. We haven't seen that kind of hitting from the back end very much in the last few weeks. He did have one giveaway, but with Edler you have to take the bad with the good.
His presence had a trickle-down effect on the rest of the defense: Jason Garrison and Kevin Bieksa both finished under 20 minutes, Chris Tanev was a 22 minutes and Dan Hamhuis' ice time dropped to 24 minutes from the 30-plus he's been logging in recent games. More balanced ice-time should be helpful in keeping the defense a bit fresher.
- Hard to keep track of line combinations with all the special-teams play on Monday, but Mike Santorelli was back with Kesler and Higgins when the Kings scored the only goal of the game at the start of the third period. Dan Hamhuis made the mistake that led to the Kings' scoring chance, but all the Canucks' skaters were scrambling by the time Brown popped Anze Kopitar's rebound into the open side for what proved to be the winning goal.
- Zac Dalpe did play with the twins through most of the game but only recorded 11 minutes of icetime; in the late going, Torts juggled his combinations to try to find a spark, moving both Hansen and Kesler onto the twins' line at times. The weirdest combination of the game was the unit that started Vancouver's first power play. The twins were on the ice when Anze Kopitar was whistled for holding, so Torts started the man advantage with Dalpe, Santorelli and Hansen up front, with Garrison and Edler manning the points. Garrison did get a shot on net with that group, but I doubt we'll see that again anytime soon.
- On the stat sheet, the Canucks look like they had a pretty good game. They outshot the Kings 28-20, outhit them 34-31, had 15 blocked shots to the Kings' nine, and dominated with a 63 percent success rate in the face-off circle. Ryan Kesler led the team with six shots on goal: I remember one point-blank chance for him where Quick made a good save, but not much else. I feel like a simple truth was lost in all the chest-pounding last night: if you don't score, you can't win.