Kings Gameday: You Could See it Coming

Los Angeles Kings (blargh!) @ Edmonton Oilers (21-21-4, 13th in West)

6:00 PST, FSN West?*

[Earl has a post below about how Pronger and Niedermayer are douche bags or something. I don't know, I just kind of skimmed. Also, do the Ducks ever not play? Jesus.]

Last year, in one of my early posts as your humble Kings correspondent, I wrote this about Mathieu Garon:

"I can already see Garon, in an interview with The Hockey News this time next year, discussing how great it is to be playing good hockey again after all the injuries with the Kings the two previous years. That’ll be the same day that Jason LaBarbera pulls a Shaun Livingston on both knees and when I’ll be sentenced for Dan Cloutier’s murder." [Author's note: Consider yourself lucky, Dan, that you were sent down to Manchester. Yes, very lucky.]

Flash forward to last week, where this was written in something called Canada East Online:

"Garon went 13-10-6 with a 2.66 GAA and .907 save percentage [last year], but it became obvious he'd have to look elsewhere for his opportunity. Enter the Oilers.

'I thought going to LA would be my chance,' Garon said. 'They changed the coach and the GM. I was not the guy any more. I knew I would not get a chance, so it was best for me to get out of there.'"

That's the worst part: I knew this would happen. Mathieu Garon is a very good goalie who tended to get hurt at inopportune times. If we had just re-signed him instead of "Je m'appelle Suck" Aubin, the Kings would be in much better shape. Part of me is happy for Garon because he seems like a good guy, but another part of me wants to just fucking strangle Dave Taylor for that trade 3 summers ago. To recap:

-Kings trade Radek Bonk and Cristobal Huet for Mathieu Garon

-Garon gets two seasons to prove himself, gets hurt twice when he has the starting job wrapped up, and is then let go for nothing

-Huet wins 50 games for the Canadiens and becomes the toast of the town

-Bonk scores 62 points

-Rudy Kelly throws himself off a bridge

***

Don’t expect too much from either Purcell or Harrold tonight (if they play). Remember that they both have a fairly limited upside and they shouldn’t be expected to win games by themselves. Both are older than Kopitar, Johnson, Brown, and O’Sullivan, and there is a reason they’re just getting their shot now. I know, I think they’ll be productive members of the Los Angeles Kings for a few years to come as well, but it may be two years before we see it. Don’t get too excited just yet.

***

Holy shit:

Prediction: Garon plays awesomely and the Kings lose, 3-1. After the game, Garon separates his shoulder lifting his bag and never reclaims the starting job. Goal by O’Sullivan.

*I guess Bob and Jimmy said in their last telecast that they won't be making the Western Canada swing and it's not showing a Kings game on FSN West on my TV's program guide, so the game might not be on local TV tonight. NHL.com, however, says the game will be on. Will the game be on tonight? Dun-dun-dun!

Fine, Search Engine Abusers. You win.

So, this being the most boring week of the year, and with little else to do, I figure I'd look over the ol' blog stats. As usual, the strangest numbers come from the keyword analysis, basically the search engine stats. So far, in 27 days of June, this blog was discovered by:

26 searches for "chris pronger skeletor"
OK man, you win. The best I can offer you is the photo to the left.

50 searches for "hedstrom ducks"
This guy appears to be more desperate. You know, the Ducks never faced a must-win game in any round these playoffs, but if they did, I was going to write a post called "Sleek's Bad Idea":

In 2003, after the second round of the playoffs, Anaheim forward Patrick Kjellberg ditched the team mid-playoffs to return to Sweden. The Mighty Ducks responded with three straight shutouts.

In 2006, late in the first round of the playoffs, Anaheim forward Jonathan Hedstrom ditched the team mid-playoffs to return to Sweden. The Mighty Ducks responded with three straight shutouts.

So if it was a do-or-die scenario, as tough as it would be, Sammy Pahlsson would have to ditch the team and head for Sweden; three straight shutouts would be certain to follow. Of course, with Pahlsson being my favorite player, I'd have to blame Brian Burke for not carrying another Swedish forward just for this sort of emergency.

And finally, 68 searches for "mathieu garon salary"
OK, Kings fan(s), we get it. We all know L.A.'s goaltending was desperately bad last year, but you gotta relax on that search engine trigger finger or you'll go crazy. Per nhlnumbers.com, Garon's salary last season was $1.216 M, but he's an unrestricted free agent come July 1st.

So relax, Kings. Your only worry should be two more years of Dan Cloutier at $3.1 M.

Kings Gameday: Free Garon

Los Angeles Kings (I refuse to look) vs. Chicago Blackhawks (26-34-9, 13th in West)

7:30 PST, FSN West

Mathieu Garon has not had an easy life. For one, he’s pretty much bald at age 27, which sucks. For two, he’s never really been given a fair shot to claim a #1 goaltending job in the NHL. He came up through the Canadiens farm system but was blocked by the good Jose Theodore (not to be confused with whoever that is playing in Colorado). When the Kings traded for him (giving up Radek Bonk and Cristobal Huet, neither of whom I think have done anything since), many thought that he would flourish and give the Kings a steady goaltender for the first time since the Dread Pirate Hrudey. For one reason or another, that just hasn’t happened.

At the beginning of last year, Garon started off great; he posted a GAA of 2.4 and a save percentage of .924 in the month of December, earning defensive player of the month honors. He tapered off pretty badly towards the end of the season (his numbers after the all-star break: 3.56 GAA and .877 SV %), but I think that was more due to the disgracefulness of the Kings’ defense and the fact that Garon played 63 games after only playing 19 the year before than the fact that he sucked. Still, the casual observer would obviously point to him as the reason for the Kings’ struggles. More importantly, I think, it left new GM Dean Lombardi with no choice but to try and upgrade the goaltending. It would have looked bad for him to come in and say that last year’s goaltending duo was satisfactory when the Kings had so much trouble keeping the puck out of the net.

Garon started this year backing up Dan Cloutier, despite the fact that Garon is a better goaltender in every facet of the game. (I guess Cloutier is probably a better fighter, for what it’s worth.) Cloutier played badly (that’s being kind) and Garon had his chance to claim the Kings’ starting job and give Lombardi a reason to sign him to a deal at the end of the year. He promptly broke his finger in January.

The Kings brought in Sean Burke during the Barry Brust/Yutaka Fukufuji debacle to give the Kings some type of stability in net. He played pretty well in January and February, but has since played like a guy who’s 40 years old. Garon is better than Burke, just like he was better than Cloutier; the problem is that you can’t ask him to prove it. Garon will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season and it’s unlikely the Kings will sign him. For some reason, it just hasn’t come together here in L.A for Mathieu Garon. What I worry about is that it’s going to come together somewhere else.

I hope Garon’s playing tonight against the Blackhawks, but I can understand if he’s not. I can already see Garon, in an interview with The Hockey News this time next year, discussing how great it is to be playing good hockey again after all the injuries with the Kings the two previous years. That’ll be the same day that Jason LaBarbera pulls a Shaun Livingston on both knees and when I’ll be sentenced for Dan Cloutier’s murder. (After this report in today’s L.A. Times, I don’t think there’s a jury in the world who wouldn’t consider it justifiable homicide.)

P.S. Oh right, the Blackhawks… umm, they suck?

P.P.S. There’s an article here at Hockey’s Future about the Kings’ top 20 prospects that will make you feel better. I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw a couple of these guys (Jack Johnson, Brian Boyle, Richard Petiot, Scott Parse, or Peter Kanko) making some noise and possibly the team out of training camp.

Mathieu Groin pulls his Garon, or something like that

I don’t really have to emphasize too much the importance of quality goaltending in ice hockey, but maybe my neighborhood L.A. Kings could use a quick primer.

When news broke this week that goalie Mathieu Garon had injured his groin in practice, I chuckled at the thought of the die-hard Kings fan, cursing the heavens and saying “please not THAT groin!” You see, coach Marc Crawford has been ever-so-stubborn about platooning his goaltenders, despite the huge disparity of play (a disparity so wide, I believe it is visible from space).

Here’s a quick look at what I’m talking about:

Mathieu Garon, 5-5-2, 2.65 GAA, .903 sv%
Dan Cloutier, 4-8-2, 3.85 GAA, .862 sv%

How far apart is this? Well, if Cloutier (pictured above in his classic pose) wanted to match Garon’s GAA and sv%, he would need to stop the next 164 shots-on-goal over the next 376 minutes (more than six regulations!). Cloutier in 16 appearances has only 3 games where he stopped 90% of the shots he faced.

See, what gets lost in the shuffle a bit is that the Kings (netminding aside) are a pretty strong team, especially lately. In the calendar month of November, the Kings played 13 games, going 5-6-2. They scored 3.46 goals-per-game (3rd in the west), had a PP efficiency of 33.3% (1st in the west), and had a shot differential of 5.4 shots-per-game (3rd in the west).

The problem? Goaltending, all around. Kings goalies had a collective 4.03 GAA and an .848 sv%. Even Garon’s awesome October (1.72 GAA, .941 sv%) turned into an awful November (3.61 GAA, .856 sv%), though that was still markedly better than Cloutier’s numbers (4.35 GAA, .839 sv%). Had there been a .900 sv% goaltender in all 13 November games, the Kings would have projected to a 9-1-3 month (assuming they lose all 3 OT games), and would be currently sitting in the 6th spot in the west with 31 points.

The Kings need quality goaltending badly, and they certainly are not getting it from Dan Cloutier (the worst goalie in the world, now with a two-year extension!). Now Garon is hurt, and the Kings are prepping for a home-and-home with their neighborhood bully Anaheim Ducks.

In related news, I'm having real trouble getting this ear-to-ear grin off my face. Go get 'em, Ducks.

New Battle of California highlight package

No time to watch an entire game? Announcers too bland? Want to see the Ducks pwn the Kings? Big fan of Eddie Murphy and/or Beverly Hills Cop?

Check out the new Battle of California highlight package. Cool as the other side of the pillow.

You be the California Coach

I’ve got an L.A.-at-Anaheim summary coming tomorrow, but first, take this quiz:

Anaheim
Game 1: Friday vs. Los Angeles. J.S. Giguere allows 3 goals on 44 shots to win 4-3.
Game 2: Saturday at Phoenix. Ilya Bryzgalov allows 1 goal on 35 shots to win 2-1.
Game 3: Monday vs. St. Louis

Los Angeles
Game 1: Friday at Anaheim. Dan Cloutier allows 4 goals on 32 shots in a 3-4 loss.
Game 2: Saturday vs. St. Louis. Mathieu Garon allows 1 goal on 36 shots to win 4-1.
Game 3: Tuesday vs. NY Islanders

San Jose
Game 1: Thursday vs. St. Louis. Vesa Toskala allows 4 goals on 35 shots in a 5-4 OT win.
Game 2: Saturday vs. NY Islanders. Evgeni Nabokov allows 0 goals on 26 shots for a 2-0 win.
Game 3: Monday in Calgary

So the three-part question: which goalie would you start for each team's Game 3?