The mind is a terrible thing to taste when things are not going well in life. The easiest of tasks tend to become painstakingly difficult, like simply waking up, getting dressed and going to school or work.
Such has been the case for the Kings of late. During their most recent season slide – a five-game depression-filled bender which saw the team’s offense virtually vanish, contributing to management’s decision to dismiss head coach Terry Murray – the Kings lost more than just valuable points and one of their most successful coaches in their history. They started to lose the confidence of the fans that expected the team to be one of the league’s top contenders to vie for Lord Stanley’s Cup at season’s end.
And even though last’s night’s gritty, come from behind 2-1 victory in Columbus was desperately needed, the team still has a long way to go in restoring faith of the many that this Kings unit can ever come close to those lofty preseason expectations.
But it’s a start or as leading scorer Anze Kopitar put it in rather proper perspective, “I guess the floodgates are not really quite open yet,” he said. “It’s a crack, and now we’ve got to build on that and get it going.”
Kings assistant captain Anze Kopitar contributed an assist in the team's 2-1 victory last night in Columbus
The Kings now move on to face a vaunted Detroit Red Wings team on Saturday, who have won seven of their last ten games and have a 12-2-1 home record thus far. Just how much confidence the team gets back by winning against the Blue Jackets, the league’s worst team by virtue of points (22), remains to be seen.
However, it was refreshing to see the Kings finally get their first victory of the season while trailing after two periods, having gone 0-12-1 the previous 13 times. It was also the team’s first road win since Nov. 22 when they beat another team who made an in-season coaching change, the St. Louis Blues, 3-2.
“I think the important thing for this team is that this can’t be a peak,” team captain Dustin Brown said, who scored only his sixth goal of the season, which turned out to be the game-winner. “That’s got to be an everyday thing for us. It’s one of those things where we poured everything into it, and now we’ve got to realize that we’ve got to do it again.”
It appears that the team will have another chance to do it again under the guidance of interim coach John Stevens. But after that, it’s a guessing game. There are reports stating that General Manager Dean Lombardi will formally announce the hiring of Darryl Sutter come Tuesday, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet.
“I thought that the fact that they came out the way they did, and found a way to win the hockey game, was a really good sign and the perseverance that they have,” Stevens said. “They were determined to get the job done, and that was terrific.”
What would also be terrific for Kings Nation is the belief that the worst is over. While the Kings have yet to figure ways to stay out of early penalty trouble and score at least three goals in now a franchise-record 10 consecutive games, maybe they’ve figured out a way to get out of the depression box. The team will have to do so, regardless of who’s behind their bench come tomorrow or next week if they want to build upon the hope last night’s win reignited.
I thought the Kings played a solid game. I was pleased to see the Kings coming back, but before they did, I couldn’t shake that feeling of dread until they finally tied it up.
That feeling after the opposition scores just 1 goal is a feeling of fragility that I can’t stand feeling personally as a fan. It was even more unsettling due to the fact that the Kings were playing the 30th ranked team in the National Hockey League, and I couldn’t stop feeling that way.
I don’t want anybody to get the feeling I’m jumping ship. To the contrary I’m actually even more supportive now in these times of uncertainty. I just know where we stand right now, and I hate not being confident about our offensive prowess.
I’m not overly excited about Sutter, or his record as a coach that will ignite our deepest needs (to score goals), but he has my support for now.
Sutter’s offense during his years with San Jose, and Calgary were pretty bad, and he only had 1 year (01′-02′) where his team ranked in the top 15 in offense,
97′-98′ 18th
98′-99′ 21rst
99′-00′ 16th
00′-01′ 17th
01′-02′ 4rth
02′-03′ he was fired after only 24 games, then hired later to coach 48 more games for a total of 70 games. Neither teams made the playoffs.
03′-04′ 19th
05′-06′ 27th
The Kings are currently ranked 30th, and it’s pretty apparent that a better defensive system isn’t the Kings most pressing need. Sutter has had success with whipping players into shape, but he’s also had some complete failures as well.
On a team concept, he’s never been able to raise the offensive part of the game to higher levels, and although I would love to show the differences in before/after comparisons of his teams peformances with/without him as coach, this post would end up 5 pages long.
Hope is all I have right now, but confidence is what I need.
hey, dom…(!)
good to hear from you…and i appreciate the response…
like you, i have very little confidence that sutter will provide any sustainable uptick in offensive production…he is even more of a defense-first type of coach than either murray or stevens…
yr statistical research also lends more evidence that he’s not known for making his team’s an offensive threat…nor does it give hope that he will enable our skills players to become more creative…
we’ve been saying for awhile that it seems plainly obvious that there are much more things to worry about with this team than just who the new coach will be…
if you want more on my take on sutter, you can scroll down on the main page and read “my preemptive strike in the aftermath of terry murray’s dismissal”…
thanks again, dom…and i hope all is well in yr world…(!)
Healing OVER! 8-2 loss to DET makes me want them to go back to the Forum.
mak@Jonsey:
makes me wanna edit my header…(!)
Kings healing took a detour in Detroit. Onward to Toronto.
Header could read: “Last Night’s LOSS Could Be the Beginning of the Healing Process”
Maybe they needed to lose BAD before they can realize how bad it is and start winning. 2-8 looks worse than 3-8 for some reason. 2-8 tells me they stink, 3-8 tells me that had a bad day.