GDT: 2022-23 Season Finale game 82 LA Kings vs Anaheim Ducks @7:00pm 4/13/23

[YAYSAY]

Fiala is really crucial in beating the Oilers I think. Kopi and Danault can work on neutralizing/limiting McDavid and Draisaitl as much as they can which opens things up for Fiala. No idea how the lineup will be, but if the top 2 lines stay the same and Fiala and Villardi slot in on the 3rd it'll be really hard for the Oilers to match up against them.

 

[bland]

I don't know if opening things up is a viable alternative though.

If the Kings had a 3rd line center, they could try and roll the lines and play a more energetic game. But we don't. And the Oilers added Bjugstad at the deadline. There not as top heavy as they used to be.

I just don't see any strategy where LA has an advantage.

You have to hope we win the goaltending matchup, and the bounces go are way. We need our PP to get hot to match the Oilers.

Kings winning the series isn't impossible, but it's pretty damn unlikely IMO.

Not so much opening up, but getting on the front foot from the get go instead of trying to survive an early onslaught before establishing their attack.

The Kings can lock Edmonton down in the regular season, but lets be honest. The Oilers are going to be best caught early in the series when they are prey to the fervor in the stands and desire to over-hit and over-score. You don't wait to let that subside, you attack it from the start and turn their emotion harm them instead of help.

The Edmonton fans think this is finally their year - and they may be right. But if the Kings don’t use that circus to their advantage they simply won't win.

 

[head eyes]

Anyone gonna make a pre-series talk thread?

 

[Sol]

todd ain't gonna change his stripes now, if anything he's gonna double down. i expect a very stale, frustrating series

kupari and the danault line trending up offensively might help swing it a bit if they continue playing well

I think the biggest issue is going to be Todd playing the same hockey that always gets him bounced in the playoffs. Prevent hockey.

Also, on top of that if Fiala and Vilardi aren’t like 80 percent healthy then this might also be a sweep.

I am getting increasingly frustrated with Byfield however. There’s zero positives in his game. At least throw your size around if you aren’t going to score.

 

[Kudelski37]

Fiala is really crucial in beating the Oilers I think. Kopi and Danault can work on neutralizing/limiting McDavid and Draisaitl as much as they can which opens things up for Fiala. No idea how the lineup will be, but if the top 2 lines stay the same and Fiala and Villardi slot in on the 3rd it'll be really hard for the Oilers to match up against them.

I think Vilardi is more important than Fiala in this matchup. I think Vilardi will keep his cool better if there aren't penalty calls when getting hooked/held/etc and keep playing. Fiala tends to get a penalty when this happens and the Kings can't survive the Oiler pp.

 

[Sol]

frick i hope the ducks do not get Bedard, i also do not want Chicago to get him....so go Columbus?

Ducks adding a top 3 in this draft is scary enough though

If the Ducks get Bedard, then the Kings have two insane talents to deal with the foreseeable future. Gonna make the Byfield pick even more painful.

 

[johnjm22]

delete

 

[Choralone]

Damn he yanked Zegras away from his boy

According to Oilers fans, that's a slewfoot.

 

[Sol]

According to Oilers fans, that's a slewfoot.

Reminds me of this

 

[kingsfan28]

According to Oilers fans, that's a slewfoot.

a crosscheck is a slewfoot to most of them.

 

[kingsfan28]

Damn he yanked Zegras away from his boy

Trevor Moore strong!

Then there's this : Zegras final moment this season.

 

[kingsfan28]

Anything is better than MacEwen. He obv doesn’t want the role.

Lemeiux was probably the nastiest Kings player since Sean Avery. We need that. Someone who will retaliate. Not a gentle giant.

While this is true, Lemeiux was a penalty waiting to happen and got no leeway when he stepped on the ice by the refs. He litterally got a penalty this year by skating into a scrum and called a guy a stupid f-ing p---- . thats all he did, and got an unsportsman penalty and they scored . He was not the answer and Blake and TMac knew it. MacEwen is not the answer either, but i'm not sure what other options were out there at the trade deadline. You know they were looking.

 

[YAYSAY]

While this is true, Lemeiux was a penalty waiting to happen and got no leeway when he stepped on the ice by the refs. He litterally got a penalty this year by skating into a scrum and called a guy a stupid f-ing p---- . thats all he did, and got an unsportsman penalty and they scored . He was not the answer and Blake and TMac knew it. MacEwen is not the answer either, but i'm not sure what other options were out there at the trade deadline. You know they were looking.

So they essentially gave up an asset to get worse or make no difference. Yeah it was JUST a 5th rounder, but still.

 

[kingsfan28]

So they essentially gave up an asset to get worse or make no difference. Yeah it was JUST a 5th rounder, but still.

its a wash. they lost a liabilty [almost a goal against per game] for a worthless 5th rounder 2 drafts from now. MacEwen didn't get a single penalty last night after Doughty got run in the first. But you damn well know if Pepe went out there the next shift and lined up next to pretty boy Zegras., he's getting 2, and a 10, and probably another two just because reasons.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I wouldn't claim to be the expert on what the lowest point in Ducks history is but I've felt it is hard to top losing Game 7 to the Kings, at home and in Teemu's last game. I was there for it and actually started feeling bad for Ducks fans a bit which says a lot because I was a much bigger asshole then than I am now.

So while I know the Kings chants at Honda Center are nothing new, I was watching the game last night and thought to myself "Loudest chants ever? 13 game losing streak to close out another horrible season? Kings fans rubbing it in?...this is the lowest point in Ducks history which means they are getting Bedard and its nowhere but up from here".

I think you are getting him. Save for a fever dream of a three year stretch, it would be classic Kings to have their fans kick a rival while they are down bad, proceed to get blitzed by McDavid in the first round after trading two 1st round picks and a top prospect for the pleasure and then watch the Ducks get Bedard.

I'm fully prepared.

Oh don't forget losing to the Ducks in the 2024 playoffs behind strong efforts from Zegras MacTavish Drysdale and Bedard while Byfield Turcotte are benched/injured and Clarke is concussed in the AHL

 

[YAYSAY]

its a wash. they lost a liabilty [almost a goal against per game] for a worthless 5th rounder 2 drafts from now. MacEwen didn't get a single penalty last night after Doughty got run in the first. But you damn well know if Pepe went out there the next shift and lined up next to pretty boy Zegras., he's getting 2, and a 10, and probably another two just because reasons.

They were hardly playing Lemieux anyway down the stretch though. If anything Lemieux was better for the team because he was constantly sitting out. Macewen has been getting played way too much.

 

[kingsfan28]

They were hardly playing Lemieux anyway down the stretch though. If anything Lemieux was better for the team because he was constantly sitting out. Macewen has been getting played way too much.

This i agree on, but he's only played in 10 since the trade, and 46 in Philly. But its like if you trade for a guy , you kind of have to play him. Its a sports thing i guess.

 

[psych3man]

You act like the Kings are the only team that have players get injured in game. Yet no other NHL teams are going out and intentionally injuring other teams best players. But you think that is the route the Kings should take.

Herby, I feel like you are doing here what you hate others doing--taking the worst case scenario (or most radical posts) to ignore the main point. It is a fact that other teams have injured several important Kings with blatant to borderline dirty plays with very little to no push back from the Kings in any way--either at the time or later on.

Also, other Kings have received cheap shots with very little to no push back from the Kings in any way. This has happened all year, and previous years but especially this year.

You say you watch a lot of games. If so, you see other teams hitting back in response to something as minor as their goalie getting touched or a guy getting cross-checked after the whistle. Teams like the Bruins, Lightning, Wild, Oilers, Knights, Rangers would all have an immediate response to an incident like McDavid on Anderson or Bonino on Fiala.

The culture of all organizations (companies, families, clubs, etc.) flow from the top down. The Kings captain is a brilliant two-way HOF player but he is not an aggressive man. Plus the coach has never been known to be have physically reactive teams. As such the Kings culture is to not respond aggressively back when aggressed against.

This passive reaction to cheap shots and dirty play against the Kings gets very old to us long-time fans because we know if we were treating almost any other team that way, the other team would respond back immediately and aggressively.

 

[Herby]

Herby, I feel like you are doing here what you hate others doing--taking the worst case scenario (or most radical posts) to ignore the main point. It is a fact that other teams have injured several important Kings with blatant to borderline dirty plays with very little to no push back from the Kings in any way--either at the time or later on.

Also, other Kings have received cheap shots with very little to no push back from the Kings in any way. This has happened all year, and previous years but especially this year.

You say you watch a lot of games. If so, you see other teams hitting back in response to something as minor as their goalie getting touched or a guy getting cross-checked after the whistle. Teams like the Bruins, Lightning, Wild, Oilers, Knights, Rangers would all have an immediate response to an incident like McDavid on Anderson or Bonino on Fiala.

The culture of all organizations (companies, families, clubs, etc.) flow from the top down. The Kings captain is a brilliant two-way HOF player but he is not an aggressive man. Plus the coach has never been known to be have physically reactive teams. As such the Kings culture is to not respond aggressively back when aggressed against.

This passive reaction to cheap shots and dirty play against the Kings gets very old to us long-time fans because we know if we were treating almost any other team that way, the other team would respond back immediately and aggressively.

But I am only arguing the radical points, and Sol is continuing to defending the radical points, that is why he tagged me in this thread. It seems that people like you and others are ignoring that is what the disagreement is about.

You are building a strawman that I just think the Kings should sit back and take it, which I am not saying. I am saying that no team in the NHL is responding to cheapshots (and every team gets cheap shots) by going Bobby Clarke/Valeri Karlamov and intentionally attempting to injure the other teams best players with premeditated intent to injure attacks. Sol knows this is my point of disagreement and he continues to say that the Kings should be different than every other team in the NHL and tags me in these posts to start disagreement because I feel differently. If Sol just thinks the Kings should play tougher, or field s tougher lineup that would be one thing, but he doesn't, he would love nothing more for the Kings to deliberately injure Connor McDavid in Game 1 of this series.

BTW just for clarity and how this whole disagreement started...this is what I responded to.

"After the whistle, just skate up to McDavid and crosscheck him in the jaw so hard he is pulling pieces of carbon out of his chest cavity"

"I don't care if Kopitar is injured and taken out in response, the Oilers are a one-man team and the Kings aren't, we can handle losing Kopitar more than they can handle losing McDavid"

Are these the kind of comments that you agree with @psych3man ?
This is what you want to see happen on the ice?

Because these are the comments that started this debate.

 

[YP44]

Players do hit to hurt as seen by Carrick last night. That was a clear example of "I'm going to do something to somebody because they touched Zegras". The intent isn't always to hurt but to say a huge open ice hit is merely to separate the man from the puck is ignorance.

When I've got a guy I work with that doesn't really watch hockey say to me this morning "I watched the last five minutes of that Ducks game" and go on to say how the Kings were getting bullied, it should be pretty damn clear to everyone on this board that watches every game that this is a huge problem.

For those that haven't bought in to this being a problem, I hope that the last few weeks have been illuminating for you. I posted prior to the game in Edmonton that I hoped they would pass the test based on how they played Edmonton the first two games this season but they went on to being bullied in basically every game since then except for the two snooze fests in Seattle/Vancouver.

The answer isn't an enforcer: it's a f***ing mindset that real contending teams have and this team simply hasn't had it for nearly a decade now.

Would have been nice if #17 did something about it

 

[King'sPawn]

Herby, I feel like you are doing here what you hate others doing--taking the worst case scenario (or most radical posts) to ignore the main point. It is a fact that other teams have injured several important Kings with blatant to borderline dirty plays with very little to no push back from the Kings in any way--either at the time or later on.

Also, other Kings have received cheap shots with very little to no push back from the Kings in any way. This has happened all year, and previous years but especially this year.

You say you watch a lot of games. If so, you see other teams hitting back in response to something as minor as their goalie getting touched or a guy getting cross-checked after the whistle. Teams like the Bruins, Lightning, Wild, Oilers, Knights, Rangers would all have an immediate response to an incident like McDavid on Anderson or Bonino on Fiala.

The culture of all organizations (companies, families, clubs, etc.) flow from the top down. The Kings captain is a brilliant two-way HOF player but he is not an aggressive man. Plus the coach has never been known to be have physically reactive teams. As such the Kings culture is to not respond aggressively back when aggressed against.

This passive reaction to cheap shots and dirty play against the Kings gets very old to us long-time fans because we know if we were treating almost any other team that way, the other team would respond back immediately and aggressively.

In Herby's defense, he's only criticizing the repeated extreme remarks which are essentially calls for headhunting and deliberately ruining a player's career.

He's not speaking out against toughness, hitting, or assertiveness, unless I've missed something.

And he probably wouldn't have even pounced on it except he was tagged and pulled into it.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

I mean it tells me all I need to know that Cogliano of all f***ing people feels emboldened and safe enough to hit Kempe in the head multiple times and take out Fiala's knee.

But besides the on-ice stuff, TM and Blake are really Dave Roberts-ing the refs and execs, too. At some point you need your manager to get thrown out yelling at an ump, neither guy is taking the league to task at all for their complete disregard for Kings players safety. I'm sure the guys would like to see their bosses at least say it's bullshit. For all the times we had majors overturned, even multiple times in one game, there's a severe lack of accountability for it going on AGAINST us. Make some f***ing noise and protect your investments, at least.

 

[Herby]

In Herby's defense, he's only criticizing the repeated extreme remarks which are essentially calls for headhunting and deliberately ruining a player's career.

He's not speaking out against toughness, hitting, or assertiveness, unless I've missed something.

And he probably wouldn't have even pounced on it except he was tagged and pulled into it.

Thank you, I am amazed that I get comments like that one, when that is not what I ever said. That and the comments that “nobody is saying to injure anybody” when that is literally exactly what they are saying.

This is exactly it, but people always think the Kings are different. Just like the supposed bias in officiating. Now in fairness every team board known to man thinks these things, but I’m just pointing it out.

I not only am saying that hits like this are morally wrong which people can disagree with, that is fine, say I am clutching pearls or whatever, that is your opinion. But I am pointing out that no one else in the league is doing things like this in response to questionable hits (which is a fact).

There have been 56 hits this season in the NHL that resulted in either suspensions or fines, and not a single one was responded with an intent to injure retaliation like the ones suggested on this forum. And what is funny is if someone on Winnipeg intentionally injured Blake Lizotte or anyone else on the Kings they would all be losing their minds. And rightfully so

 

[beedee]

Would have been nice if #17 did something about it

Yes, but did you see his last fight? He got his ass whooped.

I agree this team is soft AF in the “stick up for yourselves and teammates” department. I’m also tired of them getting bullied. Last game against Edmonton was no different. Hoping the Kings stand up for themselves much more in the playoffs than they did in the regular season.

 

[kingsfan28]

I mean it tells me all I need to know that Cogliano of all f***ing people feels emboldened and safe enough to hit Kempe in the head multiple times and take out Fiala's knee.

But besides the on-ice stuff, TM and Blake are really Dave Roberts-ing the refs and execs, too. At some point you need your manager to get thrown out yelling at an ump, neither guy is taking the league to task at all for their complete disregard for Kings players safety. I'm sure the guys would like to see their bosses at least say it's bullshit. For all the times we had majors overturned, even multiple times in one game, there's a severe lack of accountability for it going on AGAINST us. Make some f***ing noise and protect your investments, at least.

Last night was another example. When was the last time you saw a boarding call, with injury and blood not called a major? This came the very next shift after Zegras went all cry baby and started shit . Kaliyev got crosschecked 3x during the faceoff, then hunted down by the same guy and drilled in the head. Yet no major, it was a minor and a game misconduct. 5 v 5. Todd should've blasted Ekens for gooning it up or at the refs for letting it escalate like this.