No doubt the loss of Ryan Smyth has not been good for the Los Angeles Kings. Here, Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty takes an in-depth look at the loss.

LOS ANGELES AND INGLEWOOD, CA — A little over a week has passed since the Los Angeles Kings lost veteran left wing Ryan Smyth to that mysterious “upper body injury” and since then, they have lost to the Philadelphia Flyers and the Calgary Flames.

In both games, the Kings not only put in spotty efforts, but their offense sputtered without Smyth’s constant presence in front of opposing goaltenders and in his tenacious work along the boards and in the corners.

“What he does very well is his composure with the puck,” said head coach Terry Murray. “He handles it in pressure situations, makes the game look easy, slows the game down, takes the puck to the net, makes plays in the offensive zone. He can make something happen out of nothing and he has that mentality that it has to end up at the net.”

Indeed, that mentality, or the lack thereof without Smyth in the lineup, is like a black hole on the ice. But the Kings know they have to overcome his absence.

“He’s definitely going to be missed on the team,” said defenseman Drew Doughty. “He’s one of the best players in the league, but we’re going to have to learn to step it up that extra notch and try to replace what he does for us.”

“[Smyth is] one of the key guys on our team, but that doesn’t matter right now,” said center Anze Kopitar, who leads the National Hockey League in overall scoring with 33 points on fourteen goals and nineteen assists. “He’s going to be gone for a month. Somebody else is going to have to step up. We’re going to have to play hard without him and win games.”

Read the rest on Frozen Royalty

You can’t take anything positive away from Saturday’s game against the Calgary Flames. It was an abysmal failure by the Los Angeles Kings. Once again, on Saturday afternoon, the Kings played like they were recovering from a week-long bender. The question now is, what is this team going to do without Ryan Smyth? Watch the highlights, if you dare.

Read Connie Kim’s Post Game Blog

The Los Angeles Kings dropped another game and upped the number in the loss column on Saturday when the Calgary Flames and their fans came to Staples. The ending score of 5-2 basically described the play on the ice especially the first goal of the game by Jarome Iginla just 13 seconds in. Fantastic. The two goals scored by Drew Doughty and Alexander Frolov were the only real highlights of the game. They were scored with less than a minute in between them, but other than that, once again, the scoreboard reflected the play on the ice.

Overall there’s not too much to say about this game since there wasn’t any improvement in any aspect really. Frolov was put back on the first line and absolutely nothing changed. Surprised? I think not. Ryan Smyth is probably gnashing out his teeth with every game he’s sitting out. With Justin Williams still playing solidly and Anze Kopitar‘s play at a standstill, no one here is questioning the x-factor. C’mon Captain Canada!

(LAKings.com)

I’m sure that was nice.

It looks like Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty had his summer reading cut into the winter. Regardless, here’s his latest story about author Brian Kennedy, Ph.D and his new book: Living the Hockey Dream. Check it out!

MONTEREY PARK, CA — Whether you played the game at any level or are just a spectator, if you truck the kids to hockey practice very early in the morning or just lie on the living room couch and watch games on television, just about everyone touched by the game has a hockey dream or two.

In Living The Hockey Dream, author Brian Kennedy, Ph.D., a native of Montreal, an Associate Professor of English at Pasadena City College and a freelance hockey writer who covers the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks for Inside Hockey, explores the hockey dreams—realized or not—of people involved with the game at all levels and all walks of life.

To be sure, this is not a book focusing on National Hockey League superstars and their glory days in the NHL—if that’s what you are looking for, prepare to be disappointed.

“What I was trying to do was get them to tell similar stories,” Kennedy explained. “Take a guy like [former Kings superstar] Marcel Dionne. It wasn’t just ‘tell me about your hockey career,’ because I can find that out from books, from the Internet, whatever. But tell me about you growing up in the game. What was your corner rink like? What was your neighborhood like? Then, of course, it extends into their career.”

“What I was trying to do was get, not just an inside story, but a story that had the theme of the young person and the way the game appeared or had meaning to him or her and then how that extended into the present,” Kennedy elaborated.

Like his previous book, Growing Up Hockey: The Life and Times of Everyone Who Ever Loved The Game (see Recommended Reading For the “Lull:” Growing Up Hockey), this is not your typical hockey book about NHL stars, past and present. In fact, even when dealing with a former NHL player, Kennedy’s approach was unique and refreshing.

Read the review at Frozen Royalty

Uh-oh, this may not be a fun month for the Los Angeles Kings. The Philadelphia Flyers were in town and, while it wasn’t a blow-out, you could see how the Kings really needed Ryan Smyth’s presence in front of the net last night. Los Angeles has done a nice job up to now handling some top teams but faltered last night with Smyth out. It’s a tough series of games coming up. Can the Kings handle it without Ryan Smyth?

Read Connie’s Post-Game Blog

It is very clear that Anze Kopitar needs Ryan Smyth. The Los Angeles Kings hosting the Philadelphia Flyers was one I knew would be a feisty battle to the end. I can retrospectively say this was probably the worst game for Smyth to be out of the lineup because the Flyers came to Staples Center and left with a bashing victory. This game was wide open due to missed passes and subsequent turnovers, and the Flyers were all over the place pouncing on loose pucks and misreads by the Kings.

The first 10 minutes of the game were north-south to the max. The feeling out process for teams in different conferences takes a bit of time, and thankfully the Kings were the first to gain control. Jarret Stoll was able to score off a sharp angle on Brian Boucher for the first goal of the game. (I seem to remember Boucher letting in a similar goal last season when they faced the San Jose Sharks.) The second period went back to neither team dominating causing an overall manic feel and the third was flat out frantic. The 5-on-3 advantage the Kings had should have slowed the game down drastically in their favor, but it was just about the worst man-advantage I have ever seen. The Kings couldn’t get the puck past the offensive blueline let alone set anything up. The Flyers were aggressive all around and the 2-man advantage expired with nothing to show for it.

Let me make it clear that Alexander Frolov doesn’t belong on the top line. I’m not saying he played terribly; I’m merely saying Frolov is best served on, at most, the second line. He was supposed to up his game and compliment Kopitar and Justin Williams on the first line, but nothing changed for Frolov. He looked the same and I’m not sure what to say other than there will be a different left wing on that line Saturday against the Calgary Flames. Williams, on the other hand, had a strong showing with 8 total shots on net. Kopitar had 6 shots while Frolov had only 1. As a team, the Kings landed 39 shots on the Flyers goaltender with Jonathan Quick seeing just 20.

This was a high hitting game and I was mildly impressed with some players and not with others, as is usually the case. In this particular game, Teddy Purcell stepped up his visibility a touch while Davis Drewiske did not. I’m not going to strategically analyze their play for this one game; rather, I’m just going chock it up to playing in modified lines against a team they are unfamiliar with. (Let me know when that line gets old.)

The incredible high/low light of this game was the rolling puck parallel to the Flyers’ blueline that could have led to the Kings tying goal with just seconds left in regulation. The insanity at the end of the game could have tilted just one degree in favor of the Kings, but it predictably didn’t and the large “L” loomed upon them on the stats sheet. That, my friends, is the definition of heartbreak.

Twitter me up!

If you’re a fan of the shootout, then you must be liking LA Kings hockey lately. The team traveled to the Bank Atlantic Center to take on the Florida Panthers last night. Most of us expected a blow-out but it took the shootout to get it done. Jack Johnson had a clutch goal and a terrible turnover but the team got it done. With a 3-2 record on this road trip, the Kings are in good shape.

Read Connie Kim’s post-game blog.

Once again it takes a shootout but the Los Angeles Kings pull out another win in the Southeast. They faced the Florida Panthers who were looking quite different from last season. I remember the Panthers to be a team on the brink of shambles, but this season has definitely been much kinder to them. They aren’t… last in the Southeast Division, so there’s that. The Kings, on the other hand, have another two points to their name bringing them up to 28 points. They have surpassed the Colorado Avalanche (27 ) and only trail the San Jose Sharks (32) in the West.

Like the game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, this contest was a physical battle with one pretty significant difference, the Panthers are more organized defensively than the Lightning. They had a much more aggressive defensive mindset, their forechecking was harder, and their defensive box was much bigger than what the Kings are used to. The extra pressure put the onus on the second D to accept that first pass out of the zone, but missed pass after missed pass put the stress on their own shoulders. In the end, it was another hard fought victory that was less physical than the last game but still saw the shootout. This time around the Kings only needed Anze Kopitar and Jack Johnson to stand at center ice, and Jonathan Quick was his beastly self in stopping all shots taken by the Panthers.

Ryan Smyth left the game twice with an unknown injury. There haven’t been any updates released by the Kings so we can only sit and wait… nervously.

Lastly, something that’s bugging me: is it legal for a player to sweep away a goaltender’s stick when it’s laying outside of the crease? I’m talking about moving a goalie’s unbroken stick to the boards so it’s completely out of his reach. That’s exactly what happened to Quick on the weird bounce ending in a goal against with a massive scramble at the goal mouth. It definitely would have been illegal if the opposing player picked up the stick and tossed it away toward the boards, but c’mon, that’s so cheap to clear an unbroken stick away like that giving your team a lame advantage. (Replace “cheap” with a harsher word and you’ll get what I really mean.)

Next up are the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday back in Staples Center; they have 23 points and are third in the Atlantic Division. I’m definitely looking forward to this game and grabbing two more points in the standings. I realize I’m getting more and more greedy for these precious points; I can’t help it. It feels so great when the Kings rack them up because it means the Pacific Division is looking more in their favor and those in the Eastern Conference are noticing more and more. Having a winning team is creating an almost (but not-yet) insatiable lust for more points!

In another back-to-back stint, the Los Angeles Kings had one fail and one lucky night. I missed the game on Friday night where the Kings faced the Atlanta Thrashers and I’m glad I did. I was fully planning on watching the game when I got home, but accidentally seeing the score caused bile to rise up from my stomach. Consequently, I did not watch the game and ended my night on a happy note. A score of 7 to 0 is plain ridiculous and there’s no reason to waste my time watching a contest like that. Plus the Chinese food for dinner mysteriously put me to sleep by 10 pm. Go figure.

The stats sheet showed an insane slew of penalties, which leads me believe it was a chip-fest to the end. I saw a few highlights, but not enough to make logical conclusions from the stats sheets. I seem to remember the Kings game against the Thrashers last year ended in a 7-6 OT victory. So two years in a row prove to be strange games. I’ll let this one go for now.

On Saturday night the Kings were in Tampa Bay to face the Lightning in their Bolts jerseys; gross. Overall this game was surprisingly even. The shots, hits, and faceoff percentage were virtually identical. Both teams had big opportunities and both also had flubbed chances. The game could have easily gotten boring at multiple times, but they were fighting for possession and control every single shift and neither goalie had too much downtime at any point in the game. Case in point, Antero Niittymaki and Jonathan Quick had identical saves robbing the other team of sweet, sweet goals. (If I can find a decent highlight package, I’ll update.)

Steven Stamkos was definitely the standout from the oppostition, but it was a joke the way he cross checked Drew Doughty. I’m not being defensive about the situation; Stamkos took his shot from the point, Doughty blocked it like a man without falling to the ice, and Stamkos cross checked him in the chest for no apparent reason. Perhaps there were words exchanged but, really, Doughty is the better player here. Thank you very much.

By the way, Wayne Simmonds getting a roughing penalty after taking an elbow to the head was complete BS. That is a joke to have something like that get by the refs when there are two of them on the ice. I find that unacceptable and the Lightning color commentator sure acted like he didn’t see it either. Where’s Jim Fox to not be a homer and tell it like it is? I hate watching a telecast run by homers; makes me sick.

On the flip side, the game went into OT and the battle continued 4-on-4. A Lightning goal was scored and it seemed to be over. But, but, but. The refs huddled and then went to take the call from Toronto. It was deemed not a goal and play continued. Here’s where I pause and give credit to the refs who actually had the balls to call back the entire Lightning team after they had flooded the ice and the coaching staff already left the bench. Quick could have possibly stopped the incoming shot were it not for the deflected-Andrej Meszaros shot. Paul Szczechura passed in front of Quick inside the blue paint and the puck was in the back of the net, but an interference call brought the teams back to reality.

The Kings got a second chance at life. They literally got a second chance to change the outcome of the game, which they were able to do. After a stressful rest of overtime, the teams went into the shootout with Anze Kopitar, Jack Johnson, and Dustin Brown taking the shots. Kopitar was his usual awesome self but the other two tried glove-side, which didn’t result in goals but Quick was the wall at the other side of the rink to shutdown all of the Lightning players who took their attempts. The game ended with the Kings getting two more points and another win the the W column.

The Kings are still second in the Pacific Division and are in a three-way tie for third in the Western Conference. I can’t do anything but smile at those numbers. I’m definitely not waiting for them to falter down the standings anymore. They are at the top not because of a fluke; they’re there because they are working hard every night and getting the effort in. There is very little to be disappointed about in these first two months of the season and I’m expecting the rest of the season to pan out that way. Tomorrow they play the Florida Panthers for the last game of this road trip. The Panthers have won their past two games but have only 15 points so I’m hoping this will be another well-fought win for the Kings.

After the worst game of the season against the Atlanta Thrashers, the Los Angeles Kings won tonight’s game against the Lightning in a shootout. The winning goal in overtime by Tampa Bay was disallowed due to goalie interference. It was quite controversial. What’s your take on it?