Bored To Tears: Kings 1, Senators 0

The Kings played the Ottawa Senators where they won 1-0 in a shutout victory. Seriously, thank god the Kings won because I would have been pissed if I was subjected to watching this game end up in a loss to the Senators. I’m not exactly sure if I’m shocked or not over how the Kings played tonight. Yeah, they came out with the win, but their team effort was seriously unimpressive. The Kings and the Sens spent much of the game missing passes and stealing pucks and creating turnovers and being plain sloppy. I’m definitely glad the Kings got the two points because the Kings needed them and the Senators really just need to realize that it’s not the coach that’s the problem. You fire the guy and lose the next game, THAT’S something that doesn’t surprise me.

What was a bit interesting was the fact that either team got as many shots as they did on the respective goalies. 26 for the Kings and 29 for the Senators. My god, even as I write this recap, I am bored. To. Tears.

But I AM thankful that I was able to watch this on my lovely Center Ice. Seeing the Kings on the ice with the Senators was a very different image but their styles of play were melting into each other in that it looked pretty awful. One good thing was that Jonathan Quick got a shutout by making save after save on weak shots and feeble attempts at the goal. I don’t think I’ve seen a team have as many close calls like the Senators did with nothing to show for it. They got pucks so close to Quick with no defenders to help that, of course, I was expecting them to score. Alas, the Sens can’t even score with nothing but Quick and air between them and the mesh backing of the goal. Consequently, when they failed to score, I laughed. The game was a bit ridiculous overall.

Hands down, the worst call was a tripping penalty against Drew Doughty in the second half of the second period. He had to chase down a Sen and as he was going stride-for-stride, Doughty took the inside lane to the goal mouth, did his usual splay in front of the net, and swung his stick around to hit the puck off the Sens’ stick. He was successful but apparently his elbow caught the guy’s foot a split second before his stick made contact with the puck. Maybe it’s because I’ve seen Doughty do this move successfully many times that I got pissed when he was assessed a penalty! It looked clean! Wait a second, that’s right, I’m biased.

Denis Gauthier was assessed a five-game suspension by the NHL for his hit on Josh Gorges of the Montreal Canadiens during Saturday’s game. As a result, the Kings called up Davis Drewiske from the Manchester Monarchs. C’mon guys, was it too expensive to get Tom Preissing on a plane and out to the east coast? Really? You’re gonna do that to him? Drewiske was nothing to write home about, but, then again, neither is Gauthier, so I guess it basically evened out in the end.

So Michael Handzus got the lone goal of the game by getting the puck and sending it five-hole on their goalie at close range. It was a very unassuming move and I was pretty satisfied with the win even though there were still about three minutes left in the game. Like the commentators said, you got the feeling that whoever scored first would come out the winner. Done and done.