I thought Carter's OT winner was wonderful, and people weren't giving him nearly enough credit. I wrote a little thing on reddit.com/r/losangeleskings, but of course they don't pay attention to quality there so I thought I'd post it with the "Authentic Fans" here as well.
Doughty's coordination and quick thinking was great, obviously, but I wanted to point out Carter's play as well.
Go find an extended replay and watch it. (Can I post a streamable link here?)
Carter is exhausted there. It was (if I recall) already a long shift, with a LOT of open ice, and that means a lot of skating. The fact that he had barely made the red line when Doughty's pass found him is a good indicator of this; he just didn't have the gas left in the tank to backcheck. But, like any good scorer, getting the puck on his stick and seeing open ice in front of him gave him enough energy to manage one last burst.
Notice the way that his skating is labored coming through the neutral zone, and he doesn't handle the puck cleanly when he receives the pass. Those are both unusual for him--he's normally a very smooth and powerful in his skating, and his hands are typically excellent. You can see the exhaustion in the sloppiness with which he begins his run in, as he pushes the puck too far ahead of himself with his first touch, and must then take a few extra strides and shift his angle slightly to regain full possession.
Ironically, it ends up helping him. His instincts are to shoot, and most of his one-on-one opportunities will quite rightly end with him sniping it, taking advantage of his excellent shooting abilities. Here, however, his bobble of the puck took him too long to recover and he didn't have the space to set himself. By the time he reached the top of the circle, the puck was in his skates, and he didn't have his weight set properly to get off the shot that he probably wanted. The upside of this is that his crazy and half-controlled approach kept Rinne deeper in his net than he wanted. So, without a clean shot and a goalie deep in his net, Carter was practically forced to cut across the crease, and out-wait Rinne. Rinne, I'm sure, is kicking himself for committing when he did. But, Carter, despite the obvious exhaustion manifest in his legs and hands, kept his head and took his time.
Great ****ing goal.
, Brown with far and away the most shots on the team at 39 (next closest is Doughty at 28 and Carter at 26, 3/4 of the roster is under 20), Lucic with only two goals but they're both game winners, etc...
Not totally joking.
