The LA Kings can’t contain another DYNAMIC duo in season opening loss

The LA Kings can’t contain another DYNAMIC duo in season opening loss

Opening night disappointment for the Kings as the stars that shined in LA were on the other team. That and more on this edition of Locked On LA King. You are Locked on Kings, your daily podcast on the Los Angeles Kings, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Hey Kings fans, welcome to Locked on LA Kings, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Thanks for making Locked on LA Kings your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanuel.com and win $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. I’m Eddie Garcia, your host of Locked On LA Kings. I’ve worked in sports media for the past 30 years. also one of the co-hosts of Locked on NHL Game Night, a nightly NHL recap show that is currently uh on the air and uh I hosted the uh the first episode of Locked on NHL Game Night earlier tonight. I’m also a passionate LA Kings fan for over 30 years. Well, the Kings opened up the 2024-25 season with a disappointing 4-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche. And the truth is it’s only one game and the Avalanche are a really good team. So it’s fair to say we shouldn’t overreact to just one game. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And I do believe that. And we knew this was going to be a tough home opener and a tough schedule for the Kings to start the season. That is a fact. But my big takeaway from this loss is something that we’ve known for the past four years. It’s hard to swallow, but I’m not sure how we can come to any other conclusion than this. The result to this point is that the LA Kings don’t have elite players that can get the job done against elite players. You’ve got Conor McDavid and Leon Dryidle, two of the top 10 players in the NHL for the Edmonton Oilers, who have of course eliminated the Kings in each of the past four postseasons of the first round. Tuesday night, it was Nathan McKinnon and Kale Mar of the Colorado Avalanche. Two top 10 players in the world, both making great individual plays that led directly to goals in a victory. Nathan McKinnon makes a play where he skates from the blue line. He goes completely around the Kings net. He draws three LA players to him. Finds Marty Nes in the high slot and he scores his first of two goals on the night. Kale Mar makes a move at the blue line, breaking the ankles of Jeff Malot. Skates to the net, puts a shot on goal from point blank range. Now the save is made, but a teammates right there to put in the rebound. And the Kings just can’t match those types of guys. Adrien Kemp is a very good player. Kevin Fial is a very good player. Maybe Quinton Biffield will turn into a very good player. None of those guys came close to doing what McKinnon or Macar did in the win on opening night. Now, the Kings, if they make the playoffs, maybe they face Stewers again, they’re still not going to have any of those kinds of players on the ice. And that’s the thing that keeps rattling around in my head after watching that season opening loss. to the Avalanche. Now, am I ready to give up on the season after one game? No. I’m just telling you what popped into my head watching that season opener. And it’s only one game, but it’s the only game we have to react to. So, hopefully by the end of the season, the Kings depth can ultimately win out over a couple of superstars. Now, that hasn’t worked yet. This is not the same group completely that we’ve had the last few years. So, maybe it’ll work now, but we’re not going to know for sure until the postseason. But, as far as the first taste of this season and the Kings as a group trying to contain a couple of superstars didn’t really work out in game one. Now, not every team the Kings are going to play have two superstars like the Oilers, like the Avalanche, and maybe the Kings can almost look to the Florida Panthers, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, who don’t have two of the top 10 players on their roster, but they do have a handful of top 50 players to go along with a lot of other guys who know their roles and play them well. Hopefully by the end of the season, we can see an LA Kings team that is similar to that, a welloiled machine. Everybody doing their part and playing at a high level, but we didn’t see that on opening night. And maybe we should have should not have expected it, but that’s just the fact. Head coach Jim Hiller said after the game, quote, “That was not a good game for us, but I don’t want to take anything away from how well Colorado played here tonight.” You know what I mean? So, let’s give them the credit that they’re due and say that we need to play better than we did. We’ll bounce back tomorrow. That’s just what we do. That’s how the league works. It’s a marathon as we know and we are not happy with what we played. End quote. So, a few other things I wanted to get into from a team aspect before we talk about some of the individuals for the Kings. Um, this game was scoreless after the first period. Uh, the Kings started off well. They were feeding off the crowd. I thought they showed a lot of intensity, a lot of heart, a lot of fight. Uh, and then McKinnon and Macar um, you know, they were contained well um, in that first period and the matchup was the Philip Deno line going up against the top line for Colorado. So Deno and Warren Fogle and Trevor Moore were out there against Macar, excuse me, McKinnon uh, and NIS and Shushkin and they did a great job. Uh that wasn’t the case in the second period. Both of the plays we’re talking about with Macar and McKinnon. Uh it was Quinton Biffield’s line that was on the ice. So I don’t know if it was the Colorado coaching staff doing a better job of getting Mar and his teammates away from Deno, but it seemed like Deno uh was doing a great job and his his line was doing a great job on that top line for Colorado. But uh when they were at their best or when they really struck uh it was not Philip Deno on the ice. So the Kings as the home team gets the final change. You would think that that would help them get some more favorable matchups, but it seems in the key moments some key moments in this game that was not the case. Uh we were hoping the Kings special teams would be a strength for them and maybe it ultimately will be, but it really wasn’t in this game. At least the power play wasn’t. Now, yes, the Kings did score their only goal on the power play. It was a five on three power play. Um, but the Kings had backto back power plays. I mean, literally backto back early in the third period where there was still a lot of hockey to be played and it was only three nothing at the time and I think they totaled two shots on goal at that point. So, the Kings ended up going one for four with a man advantage. Uh, that number one power play unit with the five forwards on it had a tough time getting set up. They were losing faceoffs, which didn’t help. I will say though, the Kings penalty kill was probably the one bright spot for LA. Uh the Avalanche had one of the top power plays in the NHL a season ago. They had six power play opportunities in this game and were only able to come away with one goal. Uh the Kings were hoping that home ice advantage would once again be a major factor for him this year and it may turn out to be. But the Kings only lost six times all last season in regulation on home ice and they start this season with a home ice regulation loss. Uh the crowd I thought was great. Again, I thought the Kings started well, uh, but things really got away from him in the second period when they were outscored three nothing. Shots on goal in that second period favored Colorado 11 to five. And the Kings just couldn’t get any sustained offense going. Really didn’t have many high quality scoring chances. As far as the game stats in this one, I think they’re very misleading. Uh, if you didn’t see the final score and you just looked at the game stats, you would have thought maybe this was a onegoal game. Um, but obviously Colorado gets the 4-1 win. Shots on goal favored LA 25-23, but that was only because the Kings had multiple power plays in the third period and obviously they were trying to pour it on to get some offense going. They pulled the goalie more than once a couple of times. So, the that’s misleading. Uh, we talked about the power play, one for four uh for LA and one for six for Colorado. So, the LA PK did a pretty good job. Faceoffs favored the Kings 55% to 45%. Hits favored LA 33 to 25. Block shots favored Colorado 21-4. But again, the game stats uh a bit misleading as they sometimes can be. I did want to talk about something that we’re going to try and keep track of for this season because it was such a big storyline in the playoffs last year and that’s the distribution of minutes. Um, you know, last year in the playoffs, head coach Jim Hiller didn’t use much of his fourth line, didn’t do use much of his bottom pairing on defense. Um, so we are again keeping track on how that’s going to go and sometimes it tells a story, sometimes it may not. Uh, Brandt Clark certainly is one player we’re kind of focusing on. We have to talk about him more coming up in a minute because he had an interesting night. But if you look at the distribution of minutes for the defenseman, uh, Drew Dowy of course leading the way. 22 minutes and 40 seconds. That’s not bad for Drew. Mikey Anderson was close behind 19 minutes 51 seconds. Brandt Clark was third, 19 minutes and 3 seconds uh of ice time. Now, I’m sure that was bolstered a bit by the number of uh power plays the Kings had. Um and he’s out there for that. Brian Dumalan was fourth for defenseman in minutes played, 18 minutes 29 seconds. Joel Edmonson 14 minutes 48 seconds and Cody Cece um 16 minutes and 35 seconds. So that was what the distribution of minutes looked like uh for the LA Kings in this game against Colorado. Uh we’ll again we’ll get more into uh into Brand Clark’s night uh coming up in a bit. Also the fourth line I did want to mention um Alex Turkot was the center on the fourth line. He played 7 minutes and 9 seconds. That’s not a lot. Jeff Malot was even less. Six minutes and 13 seconds. Joel Army actually played quite a bit. Of course, he was playing on special teams as well. 13 minutes 29 seconds for the Kings fourth line players. All right, coming up, we’re going to get into some specifics on the night as far as the individuals. I mentioned Bran Clark. We’ll also talk about Darcy Keer’s night as well. We’ll do that next here on Locked in LA Kings. Your team every day. You just realized your business needs to hire someone yesterday. How can you find amazing candidates fast? Easy. Just use Indeed. When it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post seen on other sites. Indeed sponsored jobs put your post at the top of the page and helps you reach the right candidates faster. If you’ve been in a spot where you need to hire right now, the pressure is on and every day without the right person’s a setback. That’s exactly when Indeed sponsored jobs come in handy. They make sure your post is seen by the right candidates right now. And now you can speed up your hiring process with a $75 sponsored job credit. Just go to indeed.com/lockedon right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring Indeed is all you need. All right, we’re continuing our recap of the Kings 4-1 home loss in their season opener against the Colorado Avalanche. Want to get into some more of the individual players from this game. I did want to throw up the lineup for you to check out if you’re watching on YouTube. Uh we did have Alex Lefarier in the lineup for the Kings. That was a little bit of a question mark going into this one because he got hurt over the weekend. Um but he did play on that second line with Quinton Biffield and Kevin Fiaoa. Of course the top line of Kopitarus Menco and Kempe. Trevor Moore was on the third line on the right side with Philip Deno and Warren Fogle in the fourth line. Alex Turkot was centering with Jeff Malot and Joel Arma. The defensive pairings Mikey Anderson Drew Dowy. Joel Edmonson with Brandt Clark, Brian Dumlan and Cody Cece. Darcy Keer was the goalie and Anton Forsber was the backup. So, pretty much the starting lineup we thought the Kings would have, of course, without Cory Perry, who is out injured, but other than that, uh, pretty much the the lineup that we thought we were going to see, uh, to start the season. Um, Darcy Kemper, uh, in this game I thought was okay. Uh, that is to say, I didn’t think he led in any really bad goals. Saw 23 shots. He stopped 19 of them. First goal I mentioned was the Nathan McKinnon skate around the back of the net goal that caused Keer to have to go from post to post from his left to his right. McKinnon throws it out in front in the slot. Marty Nous is there with time and space. Picks the top corner over the glove of Keer to make it one- nothing. Second goal was a point shot with a lot of traffic in front and Keer just simply didn’t see it. Um you certainly hate to see a puck go in from that far out. Cody Cece was battling with an Avalanche player in front of the net and obstructed the view of Keer and you can’t stop what you can’t see. Third goal was the Kale Mar play where he skates in point blank on Keer makes uh Keer makes the save but the rebound is put back in. And then the fourth goal was a power play goal. Marty Nas again time and space. This time he went top corner blocker side with a very nice shot. So Darcy Keer certainly wasn’t amazing. Was it one of the best games we’ve seen him play? No, I didn’t think he was horrific either. He was okay, but obviously not good enough to get a win in this one. And I talked about the superstars for Colorado. The Kings did not get a lot from their stars. Yes, the Kings don’t have a couple of top 10 players in the league, but they still have some high-end talent. And Kevin Fiala did have the lone goal. Um, but he didn’t really stand out much in this one as well other than that goal that was on a two-man advantage. He also took a bad penalty in this, a roughing call that was unnecessary and the avalanche scored on the ensuing power play that made it 4 nothing. FIA ended up with three shots on goal, but again wasn’t nearly dangerous enough. Same goes for Adrien Kempe. Uh, did have a nice hustle play in the first period where he was it was a raced down the ice to get to a loose puck. He batted the puck one-handed with his stick, whacking at it, and got it on goal. Um, but that was really his only scoring chance. He was credited with two shots on goal. And look, I don’t know if the contract stuff is distracting him or not, but the longer he doesn’t score while he isn’t signed, it’s a thing. Um, we did see a high-profile winger agree to a new contract. According to reports, Kyle Connor of the Winnipeg Jets has agreed on a seven-year deal with the Jets around 12 million per season. Uh, again, I don’t know if if if Kempe is looking for something comparable comparable comparable to that. I’m guessing it’s a bit less than that. Um, but the point is we’re finally starting to see some of these notable UFAS agree to deals and uh hopefully something will happen soon with Kempe. Although if you watch the ESPN broadcast in between periods, one of their reporters, Emily Kaplan, claims that Kempe and the Kings are not close to a new contract. Uh Quinton Biffield, he did have four shots on goal, but he was a minus two. Had a really really good chance early early in the first period. Couldn’t finish. And that was about it for Q. He was pretty quiet in this game. So when you’re going up against an Avalanche team that has guys like Nathan McKinnon and Kale Mar, Marty Nate just had a really good game. Your guys have to show up too. Fiawa Biffield, Kempe. Those guys needed to be a factor in this game and they just weren’t. Uh Andre Kopitar of course playing his final home opener. um didn’t think that he was much of a factor in this one as well. Played 17 minutes and 47 seconds, had one shot on goal. Um so a disappointing final home opener for the captain. Brent Clark had a very interesting night. We talked about his minutes earlier. He definitely had a target on him in the third period. We know that Clark has an edge to his game. He can even be a little bit nasty at times. He cross-checked one of the Avalanche players in the back while he was skating around his own net. Caused him to collide with the goalender. Avalanche captain Nathan McKinnon did not like that, understandably so, frankly, and he retaliated against Clark. And I thought that that probably should have been the end of it, but the Colorado players kept taking runs at Clark, who finally retaliated with a cross-checking penalty late in the game of his own. Uh the ABS bench was yelling at Clark throughout the third period. Now, again, I don’t think what Clark did was uh a good look. Anytime you’re cross-checking somebody in the back and cause them to collide with the other team’s goalie, look, I know it’s it’s it’s it’s hockey. Things can get nasty and there’s nothing wrong with that for the most part, but I also think, you know, if you’re going to do something like that, you have to expect to get something in return. He did, but unless he did something else other than that initial hit, the Avalanche, I thought, kept going after him and kept going after him. And maybe because of the score, they felt like they could try and settle another score. But, you know, look, it was over the line. The ABS retaliated. I thought that’s where it should have ended. Uh, it didn’t, but Brent Clark certainly had a target on him from a lot of the Avalanche players late in that game. Jeff Meot had an interesting night. Uh Warren Fog goal got absolutely blown up by ABS defenseman Josh Manson and Malot dropped the gloves to stick up for his teammate. It was a scoreless game at the time. The Kings were playing pretty well. You kind of hated to see them have to go on a penalty kill for something like that. But bigger picture was I think Jeff Meot did absolutely the right thing. I don’t believe that the Josh Manson hit was dirty. No penalty was called on play. The head wasn’t the principal point of contact, but it was a violent hit into the upper chest area of Warren Fogle that really rattled him. Fortunately, he was okay. But look, it’s early in the season. You’re trying to set a tone for the rest of the year. Somebody puts a questionable hit on one of your players, you on the side of I’m going after that guy. And uh so Jeff Malott and also Jeff Malott’s a guy that hey, he wants to be on this roster when Corey Perry returns. So, he’s going to do everything he can to do the right things. And I thought in that situation, he was absolutely right to step up and stick up for Warren Fogle. I mentioned Alex Leferior did play in the game uh after getting banged up in the preseason. Played 17 minutes and 26 seconds. He looked okay. He had one shot on goal. Probably the best five on five scoring chance the Kings had was in the second period when there was a turnover in the ABS end. Alex Turkot found himself in the slot with time and space but just couldn’t finish as Colorado goalie. Scott Wedgwood had a pretty good game uh as well. All in all, just not enough from everyone in this game. Uh if the Kings are going to get it done with a group effort this season, that group has to collectively all be much better than they were on opening night against Colorado Avalanche. So, the Kings are right back at it on Wednesday against another tough opponent. And we found out what the big surprise was, the big reveal for the LA Kings on opening night. We will discuss that next on Locked on LA Kings, your team every day. The NFL season is here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets to bet across the app. I love using FanDuel because it fits however you’d like to bet. Player props, building a sgame parlay, or even jumping in live as the action unfolds. It makes every game more exciting, whether you’re watching your team or just keeping an eye on your fantasy lineup. It’s quick, easy, and the best way to add a little more energy to your Sunday. So, are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanduel.com to get started. That’s fuel.com to place your first $5 bet. Well, the LA Kings said they had a big surprise in store for opening night, and we guessed that maybe it was the new third jersey reveal, and it was uh nice job of trickery by the Kings. They came out in their normal black home jerseys for the pregame skate and then changed into their new black jerseys with gray matte helmets for the start of the game. Uh if you didn’t see the uniforms, um and by the way, the guys over at mayorsmanor.com, they say that the Kings will be wearing these uniforms for all their Saturday games at home, I assume. Uh it’s a black jersey, black pants, black socks. You’ve got a silver number and stripe on the arms and the bottom of the jersey and the socks. And it is topped with a gray matte helmet. Now, it’s not the chrome domes that the Kings used to have. It’s a more of a gray or maybe kind of a muted silver. Uh I would say they look like the Raiders if the Raiders were a hockey team. like if they just took the Raiders uniforms without the logo on the side and it’s that kind of a color. Um, now for the thumbnail for the YouTube episode and for the podcast, they’re asking us to put out provocative titles to get people interested. Uh, and my title was it was Andre Kopitar with the new uniform and the title was ugly. Um, I was referring to the performance on the ice and not the uniforms, but it’s it’s trying to get people’s attention. So, uh, maybe that’s what some people think it is, but I’m actually pretty okay, uh, with these new uniforms. Uh, I like the jerseys and I think the helmets are okay. Um, but then again, I was one of those guys who liked the chrome dome helmets, too. So, um, it seemed like a mixed reaction online. Some people thought they were really great and some people didn’t. Um, like I said, I like the jerseys. I’m going to buy one. Um, I like the helmets, too. Um, so I’m all good with the new look. Now, hopefully the Kings will play a lot better in those new uniforms as it uh as it goes on. Um, and I’ve said, if you’ve watched this show, I’ve always said the the the crown, if you’re watching on YouTube, I’m wearing a hat that has that crown on it. exact same crown that’s on the front of these new third jerseys. I always have wanted the crown to be the primary logo on the front of the jersey. So, any jersey that has that, I’m that’s going to be that’s going to be good for me. I’m going to like that right off the bat. So, um I did like the new jerseys. I did like how the Kings revealed them. I like how they were a little bit sneaky about it. Um I just wish it was a better result wearing those jerseys. So, the Kings are right back at it. They are in Vegas Wednesday night to take on the Golden Knights, a team that a lot of people, including me, uh, thinks will likely win the Pacific Division. If not, they should be no worse than second. They’re one of the top teams in the Western Conference, I believe, going into the season. and we’ll need to see a better all-around effort for the LA Kings to avoid going 0 and2 to start the season. We will see the LA Kings regular season debut of number two goalie Anton Forsber with the Kings playing on back-to-back nights and his career against Vegas. He is one and two in three career starts against the Golden Knights. So, the Kings will be taking on another pretty dynamic duo with the Vegas Golden Knights. They’ve got a couple of topline players that are very, very good in Mitch Mner and Jack Eel. Marner will be making his Vegas debut. You know, the fortress there is going to be rocking for this one. So, the Kings again going to have to be ready. I look if if it does turn out the Kings are 0 and2 to start the year I don’t know that that would be shocking um because of the two really good opponents. That said, if the Kings play similarly to how they played on opening night and lose comfortably, I guess you would say to Vegas, that’s not how you want to start the season, obviously. So hopefully the Kings can at least have a much more competitive effort in this one. Um but we want to see him get the win. Split the first two games and you’re feeling a lot better about yourselves. But it’s not going to be easy against a very good Vegas Golden Knights team and back-to-back games. That’s not going to help either. But hey, as Jim Hiller said, the this is the league and uh you’re paid to perform and their job is to get back out there on the ice and play at a certain level. I don’t know that that level was achieved. Yes, you give Colorado some credit. Yes, Colorado is a very good team, but the Kings are better than what we saw on opening night and we need to see that on night two of the NHL season. Faceoff in Las Vegas is set for 700 p.m. Pacific time and that game will be broadcast on TNT. So, back-to-back national TV games for the LA Kings. One other note I did want to pass along real quick. Um, we had talked about when Phoenix CPPley was claimed off waiverss by the Tampa Bay Lightning that I thought the Kings would be looking for a veteran goalie possibly to sign or to claim off waiverss. Well, I did see on Tuesday that there are three veteran goalies that are now out there. Two of them placed on waiverss. One of them is just a guy that said he was looking for a different opportunity. Vle Huso, formerly of the Ducks, Alexander Gorgv, who played last year uh in San Jose and one other place I think called Colorado. Um they both were put on waiverss. And then James Rhymer, uh, the veteran who was with the try out with Toronto, has asked to be let out of that tryyout so he can sign with another team. So, I don’t know if if if one of those teams is the Kings or if they put in a waiver claim on these guys, but these are a couple of veteran goalenders that uh the Kings might be interested to have a little insurance um with an NHL veteran if something were to happen to one of the two goalies with the Kings. And that hopefully does not happen. All right, for you every day, those of you that listen and watch Lockdown Like Kings every day, obviously coming up on our next show, we will be recapping the Kings game in Vegas and hoping for a much different outcome. Hope you’ll join us for that. And by the way, I did want to mention I saw that the YouTube channel has gone over 4,500 subscribers. Thank you so much for that. When I started this show, I think it was a little over three years ago, we were under a thousand subscribers. So, the how it’s grown and how you guys have supported the show. I just want to say thank you very much. I really, really appreciate it. Uh, if you want to get an email in for this week’s fan feedback show or anything else regarding the LA Kings, the email address, you can tell us what you think about the uniforms. The email address is locked on [email protected]. And if you’re watching on YouTube, we love for you to comment in the comments section as well. Stay interactive with the show on social media, X, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok. We are at Locked on LA Kings. If you want some extra Kings coverage, shoot me an email at [email protected] and we’ll pass along the information on that. I’m Eddie Garcia. Thank you for listening and watching Locked on LA Kings, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll talk to you next time and as always, go Kings go.

Opening night disappointment for the Kings as the stars that shined in LA were on the other team. What when wrong and how do the Kings bounce back in Vegas? Plus, new uniform reaction. That and more on this episode of Locked on LA Kings.

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