Great interview with Washington DC lawyer David Benowitz on Mark Hardy’s arrest for indecent sexual contact. via Surly & Scribe

The Fourth Period takes a look at everybody’s favorite Russian (no, not Ovechkin) and if the Kings should sign him. via The Fourth Period

Will Alexander Frolov go to the KHL? via Frozen Royalty

Rich Hammond caught up with LA Kings assistant GM Ron Hextall on the wingers in Manchester (part of a series). viaLA Kings Insider

Finally, the fine folks at KingsCast bring you a 5-part roundtable with the most respected names in local media that cover the team. Check out Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

There was a lot of video from the fine folks at Kings Vision. Check it out below.

Dean Lombardi appeared on XM Radio’s NHL Live.

Drew Doughty appeared on XM Radio’s NHL Live.

It’s no real shock that Alexander Frolov will not be a Los Angeles King next season. His time with the team is over. Here, Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty gives his take on the enigmatic winger and his possible destination.

COMMENTARY/ANALYSIS: Winger Alexander Frolov likely has a little over five weeks left with the Los Angeles Kings before heading elsewhere to continue his playing career…this should come as a surprise to no one.

LOS ANGELES — For all of you Alexander Frolov fans out there, I regret to inform you that his days with the Los Angeles Kings are very, very likely over.

On May 26, Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi appeared on Neilson and Chase In the Morning on Edmonton Sports Radio Team 1260 in Edmonton, Alberta. When asked about Frolov, Lombardi said that he was not optimistic about being able to re-sign the enigmatic winger.

“When you talk about building today, it’s certainly different from prior to the lockout,” said Lombardi. “You really get tied in with, ‘Do you like the player?’ Yes, but do you like him at ‘X’ price? Because you now have to get the right price, if you’re going to be able to keep your core together. So would we like to keep him? Yes, but if the price is prohibitive and maybe would prevent us from filling other holes and making sure we keep [defensemen Drew] Doughty and [Jack] Johnson and all these kids coming through, then you have to walk away.”

“I’m not too optimistic, given what he’s looking for,” added Lombardi, who went on to say that Frolov’s salary demands exceed his actual value in the National Hockey League, but added that one cannot blame a player for being attracted by the ungodly sums of tax-free money that the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia is throwing at players, and you can bet that the KHL is doing whatever it can to get Frolov to play back home.

One thing that Lombardi’s comments on the Edmonton radio show revealed was that nothing has changed since earlier in the season in terms of his stance on Frolov or in terms of the salary Frolov is seeking from the Kings and, presumably, other NHL teams that might be interested in his services when he becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

In fact, it appears that Lombardi has not budged one bit from his position held earlier in the season.

“Our problem under this new system [with the salary cap], is OK, I can’t pay you as a forty-goal scorer,” Lombardi said in a January 2010 interview with Frozen Royalty (see “Alexander Frolov Creates Dilemma For Dean Lombardi). “I’m not sure I can pay you as a thirty-goal scorer. I like you, even if you stay the same, I think I can win a [Stanley] Cup for you in this role. But if a player has to get X amount of dollars, he has to fill [the] role [that fits that dollar amount].”

“That’s the quandary as a manager—there was an article today about all the guys making $9 million,” Lombardi elaborated. “If you’re making $9 million you have to be the leader, you have to carry the ball, score—you have to be everything.”

Read the rest on Frozen Royalty.

As always, we hope you find the content we provide for you here at KingsCast to be entertaining and worth while. If you like something, why not Like it on Facebook or re-Tweet it. Thanks for spreading the love! Here’s some of the latest LA Kings news from around the blogosphere:

Eulogy: Remembering the 2009-10 Los Angeles Kings by Earl Sleek of Battle of California via Puck Daddy.

The IIHF World Championships are starting in Germany. The question here is does anybody really care? via Battle of California.

Excellent analysis from Quisp: What to expect from Kings’ 19th or 20th overall pick via Jewels from the Crown.

The Manchester Monarchs (the Kings farm team) are having a decent playoff run. Here’s some insight via the Mayor’s Manor.

Keith offers you a few suggestions on what to do during a summer when the Los Angeles Kings are playing hockey via KingsCast.

The Los Angeles Kings sent out a survey this week to the fans. Here’s a breakdown via Jewels From the Crown.

Making a case for Ilya Kovalchuk (a good one I might add), via Surly & Scribe.

Our favorite Ice Girl, Ice Captain Debbie runs the emotional gamut now that the Kings season is over via Hockeywood LA.

Jack Johnson was just named captain of Team USA for the IIHF World Championships. Here’s Rich Hammond’s evaluation of Jack this year (part of a continuing series) via LA Kings Insider.

We’re going to be talking about Alexander Frolov until he’s no longer an LA King on July 1st. So let’s get into it via Hockeywood LA.

Are Kings fans becoming Raider Nation? via View From My Seats.

Did we miss something? Leave it in the comments…downstairs.

When you’re a Los Angeles Kings fan, summer’s can be a long drawn out affair filled with other hockey teams playing for the Stanley Cup, re-playing the entire Kings season on your Xbox in Rookie mode and just lamenting on that simple phrase: “what if…”. We know, it sucks. We feel it too. That’s why we have, for you, some simple things that you can do to occupy your summer and get ready for next season…in October.

1. Read a Book – If you’re a crazed hockey fan who lives it day-in, day-out, there are a ton of great books out there that you can read. Check out Playing With Fire by Theo Fleury (Amazon Affiliate link). Read about the sex-crazed, drug-addicted boozer who tore up the National Hockey League for years. I challenge you to sit down on a Sunday afternoon and put the book down (you won’t be able to). Another great one is Gabby: Confessions of a Hockey Lifer by Bruce Bodreau (Amazon Affiliate link). You remember Bruce: a former head coach of the Manchester Monarchs and recent Jack Adams Award winner for the Washington Capitals. It’s an incredibly insightful book about a guy who lives and breathes hockey. He’s probably reading something as well at this moment.

2. Get Acquainted with Your 2010 Draftees – I know, in years past it was easy. You only had to get to know five or six guys because the Los Angeles Kings have drafted in the top five for the last three years. Fortunately, the time has passed for us to draft a “savior”. As of right now, the Kings will draft either 19th or 20th overall. So get yourselves familiar with players like Stanislav Galiev, Riley Sheahan and Tyler Pitlick. And, no, Dean Lombardi is not trading up to number one overall just because the draft is in Los Angeles.

3. Visit Toyota Sports Center – When it’s hot and the sun is shining and you’ve survived a month without a mention of Kings hockey, you can often get the shakes. That’s why it can be refreshing to throw on some shorts (maybe a jersey) and head on over to the LA Kings practice facility. We did. You can go inside, watch the midget Kings and scout potential standouts for the 2018 NHL Entry Draft.

4. Detoxify Your Liver – If you watch our show, you know that in those red plastic cups we drink from resides enough hard liquor to kill most of the sober population. We suggest that cramp on your left side isn’t just a cramp, it’s your liver crying for help. We suggest now is the time to give it some help. Have a glass of water. Drink some cranberry juice. Switch to beer. But, for saftey’s sake, perhaps 11 shots of Jagermeister in the middle of the summer is not going to get you healthy for training camp. Curb it.

5. Or You Can Just Get a Life – It’s the summer. The Los Angeles Kings are scattered across the globe relaxing, golfing and not thinking about hockey. Maybe you should too. If you’re marking the days off of your calendar until training camp starts, you might have a problem.

Then again, KingsCast will be here all summer with new shows and blogs. Yeah, we pretty much suck too.

So what do you do to keep your mind off of Kings hockey?

Keith Korneluk a the co-host of Overtime by KingsCast. Friend him up on Facebook and follow him on Twitter. This pleases him.

After some interesting fan interaction at the Kings playoff games, Keith posted a blog on a View From My Seats entitled Are Kings Fans Becoming Raider Nation? So hop on over and leave your thoughts!

LOS ANGELES AND EL SEGUNDO, CA — With Game 4 of their Western Conference Quarterfinal playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks coming up tonight (April 21, 7:00 PM PDT at Staples Center), much of the focus has been on the Canucks’ inept penalty-killing, which has allowed seven power play goals on just twelve chances after three games.

The result: the Canucks are looking up at a 2-1 series deficit with a huge challenge ahead of them…fixing their penalty-killing woes.

But the problem for the Canucks is not just their penalty-killing. More to the point, their problem is two-fold and they go by the names Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson, the young studs on the Kings’ blue line.

Indeed, the twenty-year-old Doughty and the 23-year-old Johnson are still very young, relatively inexperienced defensemen. But in the three games played in this series they have totally outclassed the Vancouver blue line corps, contributed huge minutes in situations where they were called upon to shut down the Canucks’ top forwards, and they have been unstoppable on the power play.

Throughout the regular season, Canucks forwards Henrik and Daniel Sedin proved to be a deadly forward combination, with Henrik attaining superstar status after leading the league in scoring with 29 goals and 83 assists for 112 points in 82 games.

But through three playoff games against the Kings, the Sedin twins have combined for just two goals and four assists for six points.

Neither has scored a power play goal.

If you find all that hard to believe, you are not alone. Nevertheless, solid defensive play by Kings center Michal Handzus, who has gone up against the Sedin twins as often as Kings head coach Terry Murray can get him on the ice, along with Doughty’s smart defensive zone play, have combined to put a huge clamp on the Sedin twins.

Read the rest on Frozen Royalty.

Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty was up at a very spirited Kings practice yesterday and got some quotes from a team who won its first playoff game in eight years. Check it out!

EL SEGUNDO, CA — A lot of attention has been focused on the fact that the Los Angeles Kings are a young team that lacks playoffs experience, despite the presence of several grizzled veterans with playoff experience, including five with Stanley Cup rings.

The fact that none of the players wearing those rings are part of the young core that not only makes up the leadership group, but also are not among the team’s best players who will likely lead the team years from now, only encourages greater scrutiny.

That lack of post-season experience was apparent in Game 1 of the Kings’ Western Conference Quarterfinal playoff series against the Vancouver Canucks on April 15.

In front of a raucous, sell-out crowd at General Motors Place in Vancouver, the Kings got caught up in the excitement and their young players seemed to be a bit unnerved by the new and exciting experiences of the playoffs.

“We had a lot of guys playing in their first playoff game,” said veteran defenseman Rob Scuderi, who won the Stanley Cup in 2009 with the Pittsburgh Penguins. “It’s a different atmosphere. It’s really exciting.”

“There were a bunch of guys who played their first playoff game, including myself,” said center Anze Kopitar. “It was one of those things where you don’t know what to expect. Everybody was excited, but, at the same time, a little nervous. So it was mixed emotions.”

“There’s a lot of guys on this team who haven’t played in the playoffs,” said right wing Wayne Simmonds, who is also playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time. “It’s a huge difference between the regular season and the post-season.”

Scuderi had an explanation for what the younger players were experiencing.

“You’re not sure if you’re ninety percent nervous or ninety percent excited,” he said.

Whether you call it a case of nerves, over-excitement or jitters, the Kings failed to execute their game plan in Game 1 because of it.

“In Game 1, going into the third, we didn’t play as good and we didn’t know what to expect going into overtime,” Kopitar explained. “Nobody wanted to make a mistake. I felt we were just sitting back too much.”

Read the rest on Frozen Royalty.

Take a quick look to the left of the screen; If you can bear to. It was that close. That close. But what good would harping on Roberto Luongo‘s last-ditch effort to stop a re-directed shot from the point do? Hard not to, but not necessary; as we saw a very impressive Kings performance. What a great opportunity to steal a game. Today, I don’t find myself quite as upset as I thought I would with a game 1 loss. Truth is, there were many good things to come from the Kings last night. From Jonathan Quick‘s spectacular play, to sound coaching from Terry Murray, you’ve got to believe they can rebound from a tough loss. Below I’ll share a few thoughts on where the Kings stand going into Game 2:

On Jonathan Quick:
The goaltender situation had me worried going into the playoffs. Jonathan Quick looked shaky, flat, fatigued. We had an under-played backup in Erik Ersberg, and thoughts of the playoff goalie shuffle ran through my head. Well, look who showed up last night. Jonathan Quick stood on his head. 41 saves, and cutting off a 1st period Vancouver ambush kept the Kings in the game. Quick will last the entire series, and will be a deciding factor in the result.

On Ryan Smyth:
The Vancouver defense had Smyth on target all night. Playing to keep him away from the front of the net, they took it to him physically. Smyth got handled in the corners all night long, but that’s not his game. If someone on this team wants the Cup, it’s Ryan Smyth. His passion showed in the hits he took last night.

On Who Stood Out:
Randy Jones saw plenty of ice time last night, and played well. He continued to move his feet with the puck, didn’t cough up the puck very often, and played the body. Michal Handzus had an outstanding game. He seemed to be in the vicinity of the puck all night. Leading the Kings in shots, and almost burying a game-winner in overtime, Handzus continues to be reliable. Fredrik Modin didn’t shy away from shooting the puck, and scored a goal in his trademark spot; in front of the net.

On Who Didn’t:
Anze Kopitar was surrounded all night. Vancouver’s defense did an impressive job containing Kopitar, rarely giving him much room with or without the puck. Justin Williams hasn’t looked great since his return from the injury, and failed to contruct any chances on the 1st line. Drew Doughty didn’t disappoint, but may have lost his head a bit. The intensity was good to see, but can’t cross the line to grant a power-play to Vancouver.

On Terry Murray:
Terry Murray coached a solid game last night. He didn’t so much concentrate on the match-ups as he made sure the entire dressed roster got their legs into the game. As much as I was pleased with this, I’m afraid he may hold back in Game 2. A few changes could be made in his strategy now that the Kings are down a game.

I know, I know, it’s shocking: the Los Angeles Kings are in the playoffs. And, while unlikely, it is possible that this team can win. Here, Gann Matsuda from Frozen Royalty chimes in with his thoughts on the first round of the playoffs against the Vancouver Canucks.

LOS ANGELES — Quit pinching yourselves, Los Angeles hockey fans. You are not dreaming.

Yes, the Los Angeles Kings have made the playoffs for the first time since 2002 and for just the fifth time since 1993, when the Wayne Gretzky-led Kings went all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Like that 1992-93 team, this year’s Kings started the regular season hot. But unlike the 1992-93 team, which peaked at just the right time, this season’s Kings have struggled since the Olympic break and are not going into the post-season playing their best hockey.

Earning a 9-7-5 record since the break, the Kings were often plagued by slow starts, poor puck support, a non-existent forecheck, taking too many penalties, shaky goaltending, a lack of urgency…you get the idea.

In the last handful of games of the regular season, the Kings showed some improvement, but were unable to put it all together consistently. Indeed, if they got off to a good start, their puck support and forechecking was lacking. Or, when those aspects of their game were solid, they failed to get to the front of the net and get the puck there as well.

A prime example of that came on April 10, when the Kings poured 55 shots on backup goalie Devan Dubnyk, but lost to the worst-in-the-league Edmonton Oilers, 2-1, in a shootout.

“[Dubnyk was] real good, but I felt, and we talked about it between periods and on the bench, he saw a lot of pucks coming from the blue line,” head coach Terry Murray said. “We were doing a great job with our cycle, possession, low to high, getting shots through from the top end. But we didn’t have the traffic. There was a loose puck there on almost every shot that came to the net and we were not in position to put second and third opportunities to the net. That was really the story of the game.”

Read the rest on Frozen Royalty

In this exclusive guest blog for KingsCast, Clayton Corley from OpiatedSherpa.com stops by and gives us his breakdown, and the Canadian perspective, of the Vancouver vs. Los Angeles series starting Thursday, April 15.

Thankfully, it’s just about that time again. Time for the playoffs to get started around the NHL and as fans (of teams that made the playoffs), we get to see how our team test’s their mettle against the other qualified teams that each provide their own challenge and reason for winning. I suppose I wouldn’t be doing a guest blog here, if I wasn’t going to do one for the Kings and Canucks series, the latter being my favourite team; plus, I think this is going to be one hell of a series to watch for both sides. I like to be fair when it comes to categorizing some teams, that way I know what to expect when I watch two teams go head-to-head and I really think this young & exuberant Kings team will be jumping on the learning curve with a lot of enthusiasm against the Canucks team that has been trying oh-so-hard to build their team on patience and puck-possession and try to seize a winning opportunity.

Since I had Anze Kopitar on my fantasy hockey team this season, I actually watched a good number of Kings games this season and enjoyed watching them in their number of stages this year. When Kopitar was burning up barns to Quick being lights out and then a more well-rounded approach when both their superstars became a little bit more human. There is a lot to like about this Kings team, especially their desire to want to play hard, skate fast and not quit, which will make them a tough team to play against. With players like Dustin Brown, Wayne Simmonds, Brad Richardson and Jack Johnson, the Kings have a great core of players that should be able to lift their “x-factor” into new levels when Game One starts and really have an influence on the game.
I’ve watched the Canucks all year and the key to their success, as much as I hate to say it, has been coaching and the system in place. If it wasn’t for the two rounds in the playoffs in 2009, there probably would have been a little less hope for this team that had a very hard time getting started this season. With injuries to some key players early on in the season, the Canucks managed to stick to their game plan and brought some new players to the forefront, while some of the old favourites took their game to the next level. In this early round, I’ll be looking towards Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Kevin Bieksa to help build the team up when its slipping a little bit and earn their way out of some tough spots. That’s what the playoffs are really about in the end.
Thanks to the Kings website, I managed to look at some of the statistical comparisons between the two teams and it’s fairly safe to say that they do tilt in one direction a fair bit, north. In a lot of cases, the tilt isn’t that big or terribly significant, but in more cases than not, the Canucks do hold a slight advantage in categories. When we start the playoffs, there is plenty of excitement to get going that a lot of teams, especially the young ones that haven’t been to the dance before, get a little overexcited and try to do too much when it gets going and that leads to penalties and the special teams. I’m expecting a pretty physical series between Los Angeles and Vancouver, so the blood is likely going to boil over quite quickly and we’ll probably see more than our fair share of rough stuff from either side, but it will be the team that stays out of the box and/or the team that has the better special teams that will move on to round two. Both the power play and the penalty kill for both teams are exceptionally close, according to their regular season numbers and both have combined percentages over 100%, which is a good index for comparison for NHL teams. It will definitely be interesting to see what lessons learned during the regular season get applied to the meaningful games of the playoffs.
The Canucks hold an edge in the regular season series, going 3-1-0 against the Kings, but Los Angeles did avoid the season sweep in the last game of the season, thanks in large part to a big offensive push and a good outing from Jonathan Bernier on April 1st. I try not to hold too much stock in the season series, because there are a lot of mitigating factors when it comes to what it really means, but it also doesn’t hurt to use against your opponents in trash-talking or clever word play.
Like any good playoff series, goaltending will be front and centre and this series will feature a couple of goaltenders who have had their seasons questioned a little bit from some inconsistencies in their recent games. Both Jonathan Quick and Roberto Luongo are workhorses when it comes to their respective team’s nets, so it should come to no surprise to anyone when fatigue levels start to sink in a little bit. Quick was an absolute warrior in the NHL this season, ranking 2nd in minutes played by a goaltender and picking up 39 wins. Luongo did have a spell where he was injured, so his minutes played numbers are down to Quick’s, but an Olympic appearance and a 40-win season was still manageable for the Canucks keeper, which is likely considered to be a pretty big plus. Like I said earlier, it has been a shaky go of it leading up to the playoffs, as Quick has gone 0-1-3 in his last five appearances for the Kings, including two fantastic appearances in overtime against the Coyotes and Ducks, just falling short in extra time. Luongo, in his last five appearances, did go 3-1-1, but had some shaky performances, including the last game to the Kings, where he was in for all eight of the Kings goals in the 8-3 loss.
Looking at the stats again, the last bit of comparison that I think should be done should look at the experience levels of both teams. The Kings have a 11 players that have played in the playoffs before, while the Canucks have 23, thanks to keeping a good core from last year’s appearance. The Canucks do have a pretty big edge when it comes to playoff experience, but I don’t want to count out the Kings, because there are certain levels of leadership that the Canucks do not have that the Kings are spoiled with from Ryan Smyth, Sean O’Donnell and Rob Scuderi. Now, whether or not those three players can reel in some of the youth on the Kings team is another question that can only be answered on the ice, but you have to know that the Kings dressing room will have a fair bit of confidence oozing from the pores. If anything, Dustin Brown will get a very thorough learning experience on how to become a great NHL captain, thanks to these rugged, playoff-tested veterans.
I think all things considered, it’s pretty lopsided towards the Canucks to start this playoff run, but for Kings fans that saw an excellent regular season, there should be a lot of good taken from this playoff experience for a lot of the young leaders on the Kings, because the team is being built to be a contender for the foreseeable future. It might not be an immediate championship, but much like the Canucks and their slow build towards being an elite team, it does take a lot of time when you’re not drafting players like Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin 1st overall. Then again, that Drew Doughty guy is already blossoming into a purebred superstar himself and he’ll be the cornerstone of this franchise for years to come.
My official prediction is seeing the Canucks go through in five games, with the Kings taking one in front of their home fans. It’ll be a high-tempo, hard-hitting series, but experience and system should prevail, much like it did against the St. Louis Blues last Spring.

Visit Clayton Corley at his website www.opiatedsherpa.com.
Follow on Twitter: @opiatedsherpa.