Tonight, the Kings ended the Capitals’ 13 period streak of scoring at least one goal in each period. Washington definitely looked tired after playing the Anaheim Ducks last night at the Honda Center, but the Kings kept the offense that’s ranked 6th in shots and 5th in goals to only 3 shots (all of which came in the Caps’ two power plays) and no goals in the first period. The Kings outshot the Capitals 12 to 3 in the first period, though Washington had the only two power plays. There is definitely a reason the Kings have allowed the fewest goals in the NHL, but with all of Washington’s offense, I’d expect some more shots, even without Alexander Semin & Mike Green in their lineup. The Capitals still have Alex Ovechkin, one of the most dynamic players in the NHL, and Nicklas Backstrom (one of last season’s best rookies), who just seemed to hit his stride this season and is in the top 30 of scoring, playing. Last night, by the end of the first period, the score was Capitals 3, Ducks 2. The Kings kept the Capitals off the score board in the first period and prevented them from getting a shot on goal without the man advantage.

In the second period, the Capitals scored a power play goal with a 2 man advantage and the Kings continued to keep them from shooting the puck on goal for the most part. Washington only had 9 shots against the Kings in the first two periods. Conversely the Capitals had 28 shots in the first two periods against Anaheim last night. They had more power play chances against Anaheim, which makes sense given the style of game the Ducks play, but the difference between last night and tonight is still remarkable. Clearly, a lot of the difference can be attributed to the fact that the Caps are tired from playing last night, but the Kings are playing very well, too.

The Kings got their only power play of the game in the third period, when Quincey took the puck down the ice and passed it to Brown, who had a great shot to get the goal. O’Sullivan’s return to the Kings’ first line clearly worked out well. O’Sullivan, Brown, & Kopitar all got goals tonight, though Kopi’s goal was into an empty net, and Sully was on the ice for the first three of the Kings’ 5 goals. The Capitals outshot the Kings 12-10 in the third period, but still only had 21 shots in the game to the Kings’ 33.

Though Erik Ersberg started in his 8th consecutive game tonight for the Kings, Terry Murray evaded the question about the Kings’ number one goaltender yet again, saying he didn’t think goalies needed a label above their head to play well. Whether he’s willing to admit it or not, it’s clear that the Kings’ number one goaltender is Ersberg even though Erik hasn’t played in as many games as Jason LaBarbera this season. The games may be close to even, but Ersberg’s performance has been superior to LaBarbera’s so far. He’s better at trapping the puck and preventing rebounds. Erik has one of the top goals against averages in the NHL (4th going into tonight’s game) and is in the top half in save percentage. Jason, on the other hand, is close to the bottom of the NHL in save percentage and in the bottom half for goals against average.

Drew Doughty continued to support my thought that he’s the best candidate so far this season for the Calder Trophy. He had a goal and a +/- of +2 tonight. As usual, Doughty looked a lot more mature than your typical 18 year old defenseman. Just imagine how great Doughty will be in a couple years when he’s this impressive already.

The Kings are still one of the three teams Alexander Ovechkin has never scored a goal against. The other two are San Jose & Minnesota (the teams the Capitals play next). Since Ovechkin has only been in the NHL for a little over 3 years, it’s impressive that he’s scored against 90% of the teams, especially since he’s only played the teams in the western conference a handful of times.

Ovechkin and Backstrom both seemed a bit worn out like the rest of the Capitals tonight, but Ovechkin still made some of the amazing moves we’ve come to expect from one of the best players in the NHL. I hope the NHL changes to a schedule where every team plays every other team at least twice each year (once home and once away) so those of us on the west coast will get to see players like Ovechkin, Backstrom, Crosby, Malkin, Lundqvist, the Staal brothers, and many more from the east coast every year.

Jonas Hiller stopped all 29 of the Kings’ shots and got his first NHL shutout tonight, ending the Ducks losing streak at 3 games. In my opinion, Hiller (with a save percentage of 90.8% & record of 2-1-1 before tonight’s shutout) has looked a lot better than Giguere (save percentage of 90.5% & record of 7-6-1) this season. Will tonight’s shutout give Hiller a bit more of a chance to play? Time will tell.

The Kings managed to keep the Ducks from scoring on their 2 man advantage (which they had for almost 2 minutes), but could not score against Hiller. Clearly, it’s impossible to win if you can’t score. Terry Murray thought the 5 on 3 power play the Ducks had seemed to take the wind out of the Kings’ sales. Murray attributed it to being the turning point of the game for his team.

Though Erik Ersberg stopped 24 of the 26 shots he faced (a save percentage of 92.3%) and looked fairly strong in goal tonight, he got his second regulation loss of the season. The Kings were clearly frustrated by both of their losses this weekend. They have the day off tomorrow. They’ll start working on turning things around on Tuesday and hope to come out strong when they play the Capitals on Thursday.

In spite of the fires in southern California, the sold out Honda Center was pretty full. Most fans made the effort to get to the game to see the Ducks and Kings match up. I was impressed by the crowd, given the circumstances and the fact that the Ducks had lost a couple games.

Wednesday & Thursday’s games with the Capitals in southern California (Wednesday against the Ducks, Thursday against the Kings) should be exciting. The Capitals haven’t been to southern California in three years. Though Alexander Semin is really shining this year, I’m sure most fans in attendance will be looking forward to seeing Alex Ovechkin in person. At least with the NHL schedule changes, the Capitals should be here every other year, but seeing Ovechkin in person is definitely exciting for those of us who don’t get to see him very often.

Home viewers were surely happy that the entire game was not shown in the rinkside view format tonight. Fans were very vocal about hating the rinkside view and in spite of public comments to the contrary, apparently, FSN West/Prime Ticket does care about fans watching the game.

For the first time since Jason LaBarbera won four games more than a year ago (October 19 – 27, 2007), Erik Ersberg has led the Kings to a 4 game winning streak and hasn’t lost a game in regulation out of the 5 games he started. (Ersberg is 4-0-1 in his five starts with the Kings this season.) Terry Murray has been very clear about Jason LaBarbera being the Kings’ number one goalie, but one has to wonder how much longer that will last. LaBarbera started the first ten games for the Kings, but hasn’t played since then. It’s a bit sad to watch this happen, since Jason is a great guy who didn’t get the chance he deserved years ago when he was hot and was benched half the time so Garon could play. I know fans that would skip games if they found out Garon was going to be in goal, since they expected a loss and only attended the LaBarbera games, but he wasn’t given a chance to prove what he was capable of accomplishing. While I wish Jason had gotten the chance he deserved a few years ago, it’s impossible to go back in time and make that up to him. I’m very happy that Ersberg is being allowed to prove what he can do in the NHL. Ersberg had a save percentage of 92.3% tonight, stopping 24 shots.

The Kings have gotten a point in each of their last 5 games and have been continuing to outshoot their opponents as they have most of the season. After the first game of the season, where the Kings were outshot 41-13 in San Jose against the Sharks, they’ve only been outshot by 3 teams and two of those were games the Kings won and only got outshot by a few goals.

Clearly, defense has been a priority for Terry Murray since the moment he was named the head coach of the Kings. It may have taken the Kings a while to get adjusted to the new system, but they seem to be doing a good job with the system now. The Kings have been enjoyable to watch almost every game this season. They’re young and play with energy the Kings fans haven’t seen in their team this consistently in years. Hockey is exciting at Staples Center and in spite of the economy; I hope more fans will come out to see the Kings play. Staples Center has been pretty empty, in spite of the attendance figures. Though it seems FSN will no longer be using their “rinkside view” the way they did in the first games of the season shown using this gimmick, it’s still better to see hockey in person. Apparently, in spite of what he originally said, Tom Feuer does want the hockey fans to watch. Hopefully, the fans will be happy with the changes. The next telecast to feature FSN West/Prime Ticket’s “rinkside view” takes place this Sunday night at 5 p.m. when the Kings play the Ducks at Honda Center. It’s also available in HD, so check it out to see the improvements. I’ll be at the game, so I’ll probably only watch portions of it when I get home, but I hope to see a better presentation and hear more positive feedback from everyone who watches the game.

David Booth, who scored his first NHL point against Jean-Sebastian Giguere & the Anaheim Ducks on December 12, 2008, got his first NHL hat trick tonight in Anaheim. Booth’s three goals were the only goals the Panthers scored tonight, but they were all Florida needed to beat the Ducks.

Craig Anderson made 44 saves and had a save percentage of 97.8% in the win that broke the Panthers’ 6 game losing streak and ended their 5 game road trip on a positive note. The Ducks out-shot the Panthers 45-26, but Giguere couldn’t hold off enough of their shots. In the Ducks’ last two games, Giguere’s had a save percentage of 82%. The Ducks were all pretty sluggish in their last couple games and it’s clear that they need to do something to get the team going back in the right direction. The crowd at the Honda Center reflected the recent performance. Though the attendance announced was 16,951, there were a lot fewer people at the game.

In other sad news for southern California residents who wanted to watch the game at home, FSN Prime Ticket opted to show the game only in standard definition. Anyone out of the area who has Center Ice could get the game in HD from Fox Sports Florida. Of course, the bright side of the southern CA fans not getting tonight’s game in HD is that they did not have to put up with the “rinkside view” they hate so much. Most people I’ve talked to would choose to watch the game in standard definition the traditional way to watching “rinkside view” in HD, which is a very strong statement. Most HD viewers get spoiled with HD and will choose what they watch partially based on what shows/games are available in HD.

Derek Armstrong, Dustin Brown, Kyle Calder, Denis Gauthier Jr., & Bailey (the mascot) of the LA Kings were on The Price is Right (CBS) yesterday. It’s been advertised all season and the ad (with the guys either bidding almost nothing or choosing not to bid on a Ducks jersey) is great. Click below if you haven’t seen the ad yet.

The behind the scenes footage they’ve shown in games (which is available through Kings Vision at the official Los Angeles Kings website) is also very entertaining. Unfortunately, the actual appearance on the show wasn’t as good. It was great to see the Kings on there and hear the (half-hearted and clearly forced) “Go Kings Go” cheer from the crowd, but I’d heard that day’s show referred to as “hockey themed” and the only thing hockey themed in the entire show was the showcase the Kings did. The prize package was an amazing one for any hockey fan, but the people in the showcase showdown were clearly not hockey fans. The idea of going to Switzerland for the 2009 Men’s World Ice Hockey Championships didn’t even appeal to them. I can understand the ice box at Staples not being appealing to someone who likes hockey (you can’t really see the game, but I guess it wouldn’t be bad to watch one game from there – it’d be better than that horrible “rinkside view” FSN is forcing on the fans), but when the idea of going to Switzerland for the world championships doesn’t appeal to you, it’s clear that you’re not a hockey fan. Any Kings fan would have loved the prize package, but the guy who won the other showcase was thrilled that he didn’t win the Kings showcase, even though he got a snowmobile and lives in Florida. Of course, a Kings prize package for someone who lives in Florida would be a bit annoying even if the guy was a huge fan of the Florida Panthers (in town to play the Kings tonight and Ducks Sunday) or Tampa Bay Lightning.

I always figured the showcases that are not won are used in future showcases for the show, but does this prize package just go away and give the Kings advertising without having to spend any money on prizes? If so, it worked out very well for them. The guys looked like they had a lot of fun (I haven’t talked to them about the experience yet, I wanted to see the show first), it’s just too bad more of the antics didn’t make it on the air.

I remember seeing an article in one of the Canadian newspapers about how The Price is Right should have had more important players from different teams on the show if they wanted to have a hockey themed show. While I agree with this, there are a couple problems with that idea. A. The show wasn’t hockey themed, B. The showcase that was hockey themed was more LA Kings themed than general hockey (you wouldn’t get a prize package from a team of your choice, you’d get a Kings prize package, same thing with the tickets), and C. The Kings are local, so they were around when the show was filmed.

The Price is Right with the Kings was a bit disappointing after the amusing previews, but it was good to see hockey showing up in a TV show, just as it’ll be great to see Luc Robitaille on Bones (Fox) in January.

The Kings don’t appear on US National TV at all this season (unless you count the NHL Network airing CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada), but they did make it onto the Hockey Night in Canada schedule. CBC does a much better job with HD than FSN, so it’s good to watch some of the highlights at home after the game from CBC’s coverage. (Initially, I was annoyed that FSN chose to make all their HD games home games of the Kings or Ducks, but once I saw the terrible “rinkside view,” I was thankful that I wouldn’t have to watch that for an entire game, since I’d be seeing the games live.)

Tonight’s game was a rough loss for the Kings, but it still demonstrated how much fun their young team is to watch this season. The Kings play with a lot of energy and it’s good for the rest of North America to get the opportunity to see them play. Hockey Night in Canada is watched by a ton of viewers. Hopefully, they stuck around to watch the second game and were able to enjoy this entertaining game.

It was fitting that Oscar Moller got both of the Kings’ goals tonight, since it was his 10th game in the NHL and the first game after he was told he was staying in LA and not being sent back to juniors. Moller now has 6 points in his first 10 NHL games, leading the Kings rookies and near the top of the NHL rookie list.

In the beginning of tonight’s broadcast, Kelly Hrudy mentioned that he thinks Dustin Brown might be the most underrated captain in the game today, since “he’s gritty, he hits hard, and he has a great scoring touch.” I have to agree with Hrudy. Dustin Brown is definitely an extremely underrated player. I think that’s true of many players who fight hard to stay in front of the net, but Brown has the distinction of typically having the most hits and not having many penalty minutes. Most of the guys who battle to be in front of the net seem to rack up a lot more penalty minutes.

Tonight’s show was also Marc Crawford’s first Hockey Night in Canada broadcast in LA since being fired by the Kings after last year’s next to last place finish as head coach of the Kings. He was actually at the game Thursday night, but Hockey Night in Canada did not broadcast that game.