Takes and trash talk from both ALL sides of the NHL's most obscure PATHETIC* rivalry

* Thanks, Kevin Lowe!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Kings Gameday: Well Played, Tampa

LA Kings (#1 in 4th liners!) @ Anaheim Ducks (#1 in gay!)

7:00 PST, FSN Prime Ticket (mute button recommended)

Allan Muir at SI.com has responded to Michael Farber's article in a defense of looking ahead past the season.

Meanwhile, Tampa Bay goaltender Mike Smith has come down with an "injury" and is out for the season. Taking his place? Something named Karri Ramo. Guy? Girl? I have no idea.

Tampa is sitting at 68 points with 6 games remaining. The Kings? 66 points with 6 remaining. The Kings have the tougher schedule (we play in the best division while the Lightning play in the worst), but our goaltending has been kind of good lately. Brian Burke appears to be attempting to sabotage the Kings by playing J.S. Aubin tonight; hopefully he'll be motivated when he plays his old team. Besides, with a back-to-back against Phoenix tomorrow night, I wouldn't be surprised if the Kings countered with Dan Cloutier tonight. C'mon, Jean-Sebastian, I heard Blake said you were a terrible actor in that Amp commercial!


If you're curious:

The Lightning schedule is: vs. Washington, vs. Carolina, vs. Atlanta, @ Carolina, @ Washington, @ Atlanta.

The Kings schedule is: @Anaheim, vs. Phoenix, vs. Dallas, @ San Jose, vs. San Jose, vs. Anaheim.

Like Earl said, I'll probably be talking more about Kings' draft picks and the Monarchs in the near future, because the idea of writing about a team with Jeff Giuliano AND John Zeiler on it gives me hives. Stay tuned!

Prediction: Kings lose in a tight one, 4,602-4,599. It's the best game Aubin has played all season.


Edit: Wait, a Tuesday night game that ended 2-1 at the arena of the worst team in the league wasn't a breathtaking sight? Surely LA fans all suck and in no way have a real hockey culture.

Double Edit: kms2 has a nice article at SportsHubLA about the Ponda Center. SportsHubLA is a pretty good site; they have one of the guys from TrueBlueLA writing about the Dodgers and the Kamentzky brothers (who also write for the LA Times) writing about a bunch of different stuff. I recommend it.*

(*They can put that on their site for a hefty fee if they choose.)

5 comments:

Earl Sleek said...

Maybe FSW should just send its camera crews out to Tampa for the rest of the season. Hopefully this Lightning team gets a tangible lift from freeing up Brad Richards from their payroll.

Mike said...

The Kings have the tougher schedule (we play in the best division while the Lightning play in the worst)..

I'm bored, so I might as well comment on the parenthetical. Mirtle had a good post on division strength a few days ago, and the Pacific is ranked 4th out of 6 divisions, based on non-divisional records. Lots of argument could ensue here. The East is inflated because they all get to play 4 games against the southeast, easily the worst division. And the western teams have to play 4 against the northwest. #1 and #6 are probably right, but the middle ones may be shuffled around a bit.

Earl Sleek said...

Good point, Mike, but generally, I have no problem with Rudy calling the Pacific the toughest division in hockey. Certainly from the Kings' perspective, it's gotta be the worst. For the rest of us Pacific-rooting fans, the Pacific is a pretty tough division, but there's 8 games of lesser difficulty thanks to "Loss" Angeles. The Kings fan, however, gets none of that benefit.

8 games apiece against the Sharks, Ducks, Stars, and Coyotes. I'd put that up against anyone's divisional schedule as the toughest in the league.

Mr. Plank said...

Taking his place? Something named Karri Ramo. Guy? Girl? I have no idea.

Haha! I laugh at you Mr. Kelly. Your moniker should be renamed RudeKelly. I happen to have indisputable evidence that in NHL 08 (the end all be all for determining an NHL players worth in the eyes of God) Karri Ramo is a 75 overall, with 75 potential. That's the definition of mediocre you say? Consider it an upgrade for Tampa Basement.

It does not state his gender though....hmm. You may be on to something here.

Anonymous said...

Not only was that blog you linked to about the English guy at the Kings/Sharks game brutally honest, but he managed to put the smackdown on the Kings without even mentioning that the Cup currently resides across town.