Part 4 of Gann Matsuda’s interview with Dean Lombardi is now up on HockeyTalk.biz and this one talks about Teddy Purcell. The Los Angeles Kings are clearly still high on him. What do you think?

JANUARY 27, 2010 — LOS ANGELES — On June 27, 2009, during the 2009 National Hockey League Entry Draft, then-Los Angeles Kings center prospect Brian Boyle was traded to the New York Rangers for a third round pick in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft.

Much was expected of Boyle, a 6-7, 248-pound center with a scoring touch who was selected by the Kings in the first round (26th overall) in 2003 NHL Entry Draft. At the time, former Kings General Manager Dave Taylor said that he would be a project, but in Boyle’s four years at Boston College, he excelled.

Even at the American Hockey League level, Boyle was a solid contributor offensively for the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings’ primary minor league affiliate, even though the Kings tried to convert him to a defenseman, an experiment that failed miserably.

But even with his great physical gifts, especially for a player with his size and strength, Boyle has still been unable to figure out, even with the Rangers, that he has to use his those gifts in order to succeed in the NHL, something the Kings tried to get him to learn.

Although Boyle showed flashes of the grit he will need to succeed at the NHL level, most of the time, he failed to win the physical battles along the boards and in the corners, or worse, was a spectator, just a few feet away.

Boyle’s four goals and two assists for six points in 51 games this season, along with his average ice time of just 8:26, indicate that he still has not learned that lesson.

Like Boyle, Kings right wing Teddy Purcell is facing the same challenges, even though he does not possess Boyle’s size and strength. But to this point in his NHL career, Purcell has been unable to add the necessary grit to his game and that begs the question:

If Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi could give up on Boyle because he could not play with enough grit, will he do the same with Purcell?

Probably not, at least, not as quickly.

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Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty has been making good use of his holiday time and has cranked out another story on the Los Angeles Kings. As always, he’s got some great quotes for players. So grab an eggnog and enjoy!

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Like the rest of the National Hockey League, the Los Angeles Kings are now in the midst of the two-day Christmas break. But unlike children the world over who might have visions of sugarplums dancing in their heads, the Kings are more likely to have visions of them reaching new heights with the return of veteran left wing Ryan Smyth to the lineup, along with right wings Wayne Simmonds and Brandon Segal, and defenseman Jack Johnson.

All four injured players were back on the ice at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo, California this week as the team skated in three extended practices during an eight-day break in their schedule.

“It’s always good to get your regular players back, there’s no question,” said head coach Terry Murray. “The energy is always higher, there’s going to be an impact on performance.”

Smyth, 33, suffered an undisclosed upper body injury, which has been all but confirmed to be a rib injury, on November 14 at Florida and missed fifteen games before being activated from injured reserve on December 18.

“It felt good to be out there with the guys and knowing there’s a little light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that Saturday [when the Kings skate at Phoenix] is coming right around the corner,” said Smyth. “So it’s exciting. Playing on a regular line and getting back to moving the puck again, it’s just a matter of getting into a game situation.”

Smyth was immediately reunited with center Anze Kopitar and right wing Justin Williams on the line that he started the season with, the most potent line in the league at the time.

After practice ended on December 21, the three remained on the ice, with Smyth feeding Kopitar and Williams for one-timers and then working on a couple of other drills.

“[We were] just getting connected again,” Smyth explained. “It’s been awhile. You’re just doing the little things. You’ve got to play to your strengths.”

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Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty has a new story up on HockeyTalk.biz and, as usual, he’s rocking the interviews and analysis of the Los Angeles Kings performance. It’s a must-read as I know we’re all anxiously awaiting the Kings return to the ice.

LOS ANGELES — Over the vast majority of their history, the Los Angeles Kings have traditionally played poorly in December, so often that many fans resign themselves to the inevitable “December Swoon.”

But this year’s Kings have been a big surprise. To be sure, they have done anything but swoon as their 7-2-1 record for this month (going into action on December 19), indicates. With four games left to play this month, the Kings are guaranteed to have a winning record in December, a rather shocking fact for many Kings fans.

Even more impressive, the Kings have earned a 9-5-1 record since veteran left wing Ryan Smyth went down with what is believed to be a rib injury on November 16. Compare that to recent seasons past when the loss of a key player would have sent them free-falling in the standings, it is rather apparent that there is something very different about the 2009-10 Kings.

“We’re doing all the little things and getting timely goals,” said goaltender Jonathan Quick.

“You could look at as some nights, we seem to be doing it with smoke and mirrors and other nights, it seems like it’s the mark of a good team, or a team that’s maturing and getting better—you don’t have to bring your best effort every night,” said defenseman Sean O’Donnell. “Just find a way to win. We’re starting to get confidence and learn to win the games that aren’t pretty. We’re starting to get on a nice little roll here.”

“Even though our penalty-killing hasn’t been great, when we’ve had to kill one, we’ve killed it,” added O’Donnell. “When Quick has had to make the save, he’s made the save.”

Check out Gann’s latest story on HockeyTalk.biz

Is Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty writing positively about Brad Richardson? That’s right, folks, the guy we all wanted on a one-way ticket to Manchester is playing some good hockey right now. Teddy Purcell, however, isn’t. Here’s the latest from Gann.

LOS ANGELES — After losing three of their first four games without veteran left wing Ryan Smyth, things looked quite bad for the still young Los Angeles Kings and their survival in the Western Conference playoff race.

During that stretch, the Kings allowed twelve goals while scoring just eight. To be sure, their defensive play, which was a major strength last season, had finally been exposed with Smyth out of the lineup.

“We’ve got to tighten up defensively,” defenseman Matt Greene said on November 22. “In this league, you’re not going to win games with the old run-and-gun—you’re not going to win championships. That’s something that needs to be addressed immediately, that commitment to defense and to taking pride in not giving up goals.”

“We just have to play with more confidence and make a commitment to defense,” Greene added. “We have to know our assignments. You have to know what you’re doing on the ice before you get out there. A lot of this game is read and react, but there’s a lot that’s structured, too, just knowing where you need to be. That’s what we have to get back to—knowing your job and doing it.”

Discipline in terms of playing within their system has also contributed to the Kings’ poor defensive coverage.

“Sometimes there are mental lapses out there,” Greene explained. “That’s what we have to eliminate so everyone’s on the same page, so you know where your partner is going to be or where you line mates are going to be. That’s how you play within your structure.”

Much of the talk since Smyth suffered the dreaded “upper body injury” that will keep him out of the lineup for 4-6 weeks has been that if the Kings can play .500 hockey until he returns, they should be in good shape for a playoff run.

But few believed they could do it.

Nevertheless, to the surprise of just about everyone, the Kings are 4-3-0 going into their December 5 matinee contest against the St. Louis Blues at Staples Center.

So far, so good.

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Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty chimes in once again on his regular column at HockeyTalk.biz about Rogie Vachon’s exclusion from the Hockey Hall of Fame. This is a very important article to read in that, as fans, we need to make our voices heard and get Rogie where he needs to be…in the Hall. Read on.

LOS ANGELES — Many hockey fans in the Los Angeles area have at least heard of Rogie Vachon. They may know that he was the best goaltender ever to wear the jersey of the Los Angeles Kings. But few know of his accomplishments with the Kings and with the Montreal Canadiens prior to his arrival in Southern California.

Even fewer know that Vachon’s accomplishments rank him among the greatest goaltenders to have ever played the game, yet he continues to be denied the honor of being inducted into the hallowed halls of the Hockey Hall of Fame (HHOF).

A close look at Vachon’s career statistics shows that he ranks ahead of a considerable number of goaltenders who were inducted into the HHOF years ago (for details, see Time To Right A Wrong: Hockey Hall of Fame Must Induct Rogie Vachon).

“If there was anyone who deserves to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame who is not—if you look at his numbers, a Vezina Trophy, three Stanley Cups, and the fact is, he wasn’t just the second fiddle on that [Montreal Canadiens] team,” said Brian Kennedy, who featured Vachon in his new book, Living The Hockey Dream. “He shared the goaltending duties with Gump Worsley in that Vezina season and they won the Cup that same season, let alone everything he did for the Kings in the mid-Seventies.”

“There is no way we can keep that guy out of the Hockey Hall of Fame,” added Kennedy.

Vachon got his start in the National Hockey League with the Canadiens in the 1966-67 season, back when the league still consisted of its Original Six teams.

“They called me up with nineteen games to go and, at that time, the coach never told you who’s going to play that night,” said Vachon. “The tradition was that the trainer would come in just before the warm-up and give the puck to the goalie who plays.”

“That night, the trainer gave me the puck, so that was a bit of a shock,” added Vachon. “Especially during the warm-up when I was trying to settle down. On top of that, my first shot in the National Hockey League was a breakaway from Gordie Howe from the blue line in.”

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Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty chimes in with his regular column on HockeyTalk.biz. It’s a good read, especially now that we’re at .500. Can the Kings recover from this?

LOS ANGELES — After getting off to a hot 4-1-0 start to the still very young 2009-10 National Hockey League season, the Los Angeles Kings find themselves in the midst a three-game losing streak as they head to Dallas on October 19, the final game of their six-game road swing.

Indeed, after winning four straight games for the first time since October, 2007, the Kings have hit the skids during their longest road trip of the season, and Kings fans have already begun to jump ship, writing the Kings off for yet another season.

Given the team’s woeful history of mediocrity and with the Kings having failed to qualify for the playoffs since the 2001-02 season, fans have earned the right to be skeptical.

Nevertheless, the 2009-10 Kings are still a better team on paper than they have been at any time in the past three seasons and with the team only eight games into the season, is the growing skepticism warranted?

If you focus on their woes in the face-off circle, inconsistent goaltending from both Erik Ersberg and Jonathan Quick and the fact that the first line of Anze Kopitar, Ryan Smyth and Justin Williams has cooled off a bit from their smoking hot start, the answer is yes, it is time to be skeptical. At the very least, these are causes for concern.

But the Kings’ top line is still light years ahead of anything their top forward lines accomplished last season and the team is tied for fifth in the league in scoring as of this writing. Oh…there’s also that little thing about them having played just eight of their 82 games.

Under the circumstances, while the early naysayers may be proven correct down the road and although there are reasons to be concerned, it is still way too early to write the Kings off for the season.

One of the biggest factors, assuming the Kings shore up their weaknesses, is the production of their first line, as Kopitar, Smyth and Williams came out of the gate on fire, combining for ten goals and fifteen assists for 25 points in the team’s first five games, averaging five points per game.

But during the current three-game slide, the top line has generated just two goals and four assists for six points, averaging just two points per game.

To be sure, the top line has cooled off considerably, and Williams being one of eight players who were ill going into their game at Columbus on October 17 (a 4-1 loss) did not help matters.

Even though the top line has re-entered Earth’s atmosphere, they could easily rise again.

“I’m just glad that things are going the way they are,” said Kopitar. “Everything seems to be in place right now. We’ve been building the chemistry and it’s really good to see it come through.”

“You’ve got three skilled guys, but you’ve also have three guys who work hard, and you have to put the work before the skill if anything’s going to come out of it,” said Williams. “If we keep getting our chances, game in and game out, then we should be successful together.”

Kopitar is off to fast start, leading the Kings in scoring with four goals and eight assists for twelve points in the eight games…

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Read Gann Matsuda’s latest piece on HockeyTalk.biz about this very exciting season of hockey for the LA Kings.

LOS ANGELES — Entering their fourth season since President/General Manager Dean Lombardi began the process of tearing down the Los Angeles Kings and building them back up, practically from scratch, those efforts are now, finally, beginning to bear ripe, sweet fruit.

Indeed, instead of having a bunch of older veterans on the downside of their careers making up the core of the team, the core is now made up of young players who are on the rise. They are skilled, strong in terms of character and they have been “growing up” together, building strong bonds with each other, something rarely seen before in the Kings’ dressing room.

If that sounds like things are coming together for the Kings, don’t worry. You are not hearing things. You do not need to get your hearing checked.

Yes, Lombardi’s rebuilding efforts have resulted in significant improvements on the forward lines, on defense and in goal. But does that mean the Kings are now a playoff team?

Maybe.

To be sure, expectations for the team, both from fans and from management, are higher than they have been since the last time the Kings made the playoffs in 2002, maybe higher, since this team is not being built just to be invited to the post-season party. Rather, it is being built to win the Stanley Cup and become a perennial contender.

But they have not reached that level yet, so first things first.

“It’s early,” said newly-acquired veteran left wing Ryan Smyth. “For sure, every team wants to make the playoffs and from there, it’s a whole new season. But let’s start the season, get used to each other, develop some chemistry, some team camaraderie and go from there.”

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LOS ANGELES — Although he has not been here in the Southern California area for long, veteran defenseman Rob Scuderi is already making himself right at home on the Los Angeles Kings’ blue line.
After just a couple of days of training camp, the thirty-year-old Scuderi found himself paired with 22-year-old defenseman Jack Johnson in a 4-3 pre-season win over the Phoenix Coyotes at Staples Center on September 15.

Scuderi was solid defensively, despite deflecting a point shot by Coyotes defenseman Keith Yandle past Kings goalie prospect Jonathan Bernier to give the Coyotes a 2-1 lead at the 5:18 mark of the second period.
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Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty had a chance to talk with Hall of Famer and Los Angeles Kings great Marcel Dionne at Hockey Fest ‘09 last weekend. Here’s his latest article on HockeyTalk.biz.

LOS ANGELES — Despite the fact that he is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, making him one of the all-time greatest players to have ever played the game, former Los Angeles Kings superstar center Marcel Dionne is not exactly a household name in Southern California.

Dionne was acquired by the Kings on June 23, 1975, along with Bart Crashley, from the Detroit Red Wings in exchange for Terry Harper, Dan Maloney and a second round draft choice (later transferred to the Minnesota North Stars) in the 1976 National Hockey League Entry Draft.

From that day forward, the Kings finally had that elite, superstar forward they had lacked since they joined the NHL in 1967.

Dionne made a huge and immediate impact. In the 1975-76 season, his first with the Kings, Dionne scored forty goals and tallied 54 assists for 94 points in eighty games.

Dionne never looked back after that, scoring 550 goals and contributing 757 assists for 1,307 points in 921 regular season games with the Kings. He still leads the team on their all-time assists list (757), ranks second all-time in goals (550), and to top it all off, he was part of the famed Triple Crown Line, along with Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor, that was so dominant for six seasons.

Dionne played in twenty NHL seasons with the Red Wings, Kings and Rangers, scoring 731 regular season goals and adding 1,040 assists for 1,771 points. He ranks fourth all-time in the NHL in goals, ninth in assists, fifth in points, second in goals by a center and ranks fourth all-time in points by a center.

Perhaps more eye-opening is that Dionne scored forty or more goals in ten seasons and scored fifty or more in five straight seasons. He also scored 100 or more points in eight seasons (ranked third all-time in the NHL)…

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Gann Matsuda of Frozen Royalty had the opportunity to get some good stuff from David Kolomatis and Patrick Mullen at development camp, hosted by the Los Angeles Kings. Check out his latest article on HockeyTalk.biz

DEVELOPMENT CAMP: Here’s a look at couple of the Los Angeles Kings’ lesser-known prospects along with head coach Terry Murray’s thoughts as the development camp wrapped up on July 12.

EL SEGUNDO, CA — Each summer at the Los Angeles Kings annual development camp for their young prospects, fans ooh, ahh and gush about the players who were highly-touted first round picks, the massive hulks who throw a big hit or two to get the attention of the coaches and management, not to mention the occasional late-round draft pick who scores a highlight-reel goal and wows the crowd.

But outside of that relative handful of young players, the majority of the prospects are long shots to make it to the National Hockey League—that goes for the prospects of every single NHL franchise. But they aren’t the proverbial chopped liver, either, so HockeyTalk spoke with a couple of the Kings’ young prospects who are not on most people’s radar.

Although the Kings were focused on big, tough physical players during the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, one of their draft picks did not fit that mold.

Puck-moving, offensive defenseman David Kolomatis caught the eyes of the Kings’ scouts with a solid third season with the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League, scoring eighteen goals and contributing 28 assists for 46 points with 52 penalty minutes in 63 regular season games.

In four playoff games, Kolomatis scored two goals and added two assists for four points.

The 5-11, 186-pound native of Basking Ridge, New Jersey was selected by the Kings in the fifth round (126th overall) of the 2009 draft and within a couple of weeks, found himself in a totally new environment.

“It’s actually my first time on the West Coast,” Kolomatis said of his time at the Kings development camp. “I didn’t get a chance to touch the Pacific Ocean yet. We’ve been pretty busy here. It’s been a great experience for me…”

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