GDT: 03/30/2013 | Los Angeles Kings @ Minnesota Wild | 7:00 PM CST FSN & FSWI

[Billy Mays Here*]

A few things I noticed while at the game tonight:

I love Clark's willingness to shoot the puck. He looked solid out there tonight.

Backstrom was solid. He got beat on a couple fantastic shots.

Gilbert continues to look bad, especially on that first goal.

Parise's hustle alone makes him so much better than many of our forwards.

Spurgeon played fairly well, Stoner struggled a bit.

Why goalies haven't figured out that Cullen always goes five hole and Koivu almost always goes shelf with that backhand I have no idea.

Seto and Cullen continue to play fantastic. Every single game Cullen always pulls an amazing move/pass out of his ass.

 

[Fel 96]

Page 12 of this GDT was my favorite for sure.

Yeah, no kidding.

Overreactions are always funny.

 

[Avder]

Also I can't change my avatar to something else until we lose again.

Hoping I'm stuck with this until July.

 

[Sportsfan1]

One thing you are forgetting... playoff hockey in no way shape or form resembles regular season hockey. It is an absolutely grueling endeavor. Their size would absolutley take a toll on our team in a 7 game series. I think you are really selling their team short right now.

AT BEST - these two are about as evenly matched as teams come.

I think we should just leave it at that too. Two evenly matched teams and who would've thought a year ago at this time we'd ever say that.

Just an unbelievable, gutty, character win, overcoming Stoner's gaffe, a tremendous effort by LA to still come back from all that and win. Absolutely incredible, I thought the game was for the most part even and exciting all the way throughout. This team does nothing but continue to impress me, winning when their D, PK and even Backs aren't always at their best, absolutely amazing!

 

[OpRedDawn*]

i love how coyle is in the interviews and such

guy doesn't care about anything except hockey. love it. dude is really dedicated

 

[J22*]

A few things I noticed while at the game tonight:

I love Clark's willingness to shoot the puck. He looked solid out there tonight.

Backstrom was solid. He got beat on a couple fantastic shots.

Gilbert continues to look bad, especially on that first goal.

Parise's hustle alone makes him so much better than many of our forwards.

Spurgeon played fairly well, Stoner struggled a bit.

Why goalies haven't figured out that Cullen always goes five hole and Koivu almost always goes shelf with that backhand I have no idea.

Seto and Cullen continue to play fantastic. Every single game Cullen always pulls an amazing move/pass out of his ass.

Neither move can really be stopped if they hit their spot.

The only way to stop Koivu's backhand is to cheat gloveside, but then Koivu just shoots stickside before he even makes a move.

For Cullen, the only chance would be to go down early, but then Cully just goes around him and tucks it in

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Such a lucky win... so many Cups lost.

 

[Jaykay]

Yeah, no kidding.

Overreactions are always funny.

Seriously, it's kind of embarrassing to read through after the fact.

It was a great game to be at tonight. Very fun atmosphere after the Wild tied it up, it's nice to hear some actual noise in the Xcel every now and then. I was right behind Quick when he had his meltdown, great fun.

One thing I have to point out though, Drew Doughty was the best player on the ice tonight, holy **** that guy is good.

 

[RussosBurner]

God the XBOX GCL app is so beautiful, the frame rate is insane and picture quality is so good, wish I could get the wild game on it without paying for a VPN.

My thoughts exactly. I feel like I'm at the game almost. It's unreal how clear it is. But it does freeze on me a lot.... Though I think that it's because of my ****** WiFi not the app or the box.

*I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYYY.......

EDIT: Also forgot to add some other thoughts.

Yeo hasn't won in regulation two games in a row? Fire him.

Seto, no goals tonight? Trade him now.

Brodin no points? Bust.

We got lucky tonight. We only won because Quick was distracted by the hot girl in row 5. If she would have been upper deck we would have lost for sure.

On a serious note though... Nice gutty win. Not the prettiest, but a win. PK had an off night, need a bounce bad next opportunity. Backstrom did well to bend not break. Our best players were our best guys tonight. We are awesome in shootouts. Yeo is a pretty good coach. Clayton Stoner should be in Houston or on the waiver wire. An absolute liability every time he's on the ice. I like him as a person but he makes horrible decisions, he has little to no hockey sense, he DOESN'T have a great shot, he's a terrible skater... He just needs to go. I think we've all seen enough at this point.

Glad to get the two points and be back in front of Vanny

 

[Lapa]

Glad we won! Just could not stay awake for this.

 

[vitogor]

I really liked Clark out there. Now, I missed the first period, so didn't see his initial struggles. But in the last two periods and in overtime I thought he played well. He is a natural skater, so that really helps, but also very calm and smart. "Poor man's Suter" sounds about right.

 

[vitogor]

My thoughts exactly. I feel like I'm at the game almost. It's unreal how clear it is. But it does freeze on me a lot.... Though I think that it's because of my ****** WiFi not the app or the box.



*I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYYY.......

EDIT: Also forgot to add some other thoughts.

Yeo hasn't won in regulation two games in a row? Fire him.

Seto, no goals tonight? Trade him now.

Brodin no points? Bust.

We got lucky tonight. We only won because Quick was distracted by the hot girl in row 5. If she would have been upper deck we would have lost for sure.

On a serious note though... Nice gutty win. Not the prettiest, but a win. PK had an off night, need a bounce bad next opportunity. Backstrom did well to bend not break. Our best players were our best guys tonight. We are awesome in shootouts. Yeo is a pretty good coach. Clayton Stoner should be in Houston or on the waiver wire. An absolute liability every time he's on the ice. I like him as a person but he makes horrible decisions, he has little to no hockey sense, he DOESN'T have a great shot, he's a terrible skater... He just needs to go. I think we've all seen enough at this point.

Glad to get the two points and be back in front of Vanny

I completely agree. I I'll take Falk over Stoner at this point, and that's saying something, because I think Falk is brutal as well. But at least he can skate, and doesn't treat the puck like it's a live grenade. Every time Stoner touches the puck, I want to slit my wrists and call it a life

 

[W75]

oh man... too bad there's no sound on gifs...that reminds me so much of the 2001: A Space Odyssey scene where the monolith teaches the monkeys how to use a bone as a club.

*I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYYY.......

Wow, my brains are now repeating these two images again and again. Music included

 

[Jaykay]

Every time Stoner touches the puck, I want to slit my wrists and call it a life

Relax

 

[TaLoN]

Every time Stoner touches the puck, I want to slit my wrists and call it a life

Then you need to find another source of entertainment. This is a GAME. No need to even approach the idea even in jest of ending your life over such a miniscule thing.

 

[Sharppi]

Morning.

Good that we won.

It's really really horrible to see Stoner do anything with the puck. I'm okay with my decision to go to sleep after that Kings 3-1 goal. Stoner really showed what he is all about there.

 

[WILDTATE10]

Haven't read any of this thread and all of this may have been said already. Kings PGT...

If Cullen's goal should have been stopped then so should have Carter's (wanted to post that in there so badly)

Mods here are very professional but everyone there is crying like b******

Also no mention of Stoners gift wrapped goal for them?

Yea they deserved it...

 

[TheSlovenian]

Haven't read any of this thread and all of this may have been said already. Kings PGT...

If Cullen's goal should have been stopped then so should have Carter's (wanted to post that in there so badly)

Mods here are very professional but everyone there is crying like b******

Also no mention of Stoners gift wrapped goal for them?

Yea they deserved it...

Meh, some guys are overreacting and some are just pissed off. For a moment it looked like Canucks board . Blamind the game because of refs is not our "style". However, I didn't watch the game so I can't comment on the refs .

 

[AKL]

Man, Kings fans' egos on this board are insane.

 

[TaLoN]

Haven't read any of this thread and all of this may have been said already. Kings PGT...

If Cullen's goal should have been stopped then so should have Carter's (wanted to post that in there so badly)

Mods here are very professional but everyone there is crying like b******

Also no mention of Stoners gift wrapped goal for them?

Yea they deserved it...

You mean they get bipolar just like we do here? Go check out page 12 here... go read the thread from Friday night's game...

 

[Avder]

You mean they get bipolar just like we do here? Go check out page 12 here... go read the thread from Friday night's game...

Yeah, I was melting down harder than Quick did tonight after the shootout.

I'm eager to see what our lineup looks like on Monday. Hopefully the D pairings are set up optimally now that we've seen what Clark can do. He's a solid addition for this team considering the talents rate of fall off once you get past Brodin, Suter, and to lesser much extents, Gilbert and Spurgeon.

Also really hoping that Yeo tugs on the reigns and gets the team to fix its defensive play lately. As well as the PK. Holy **** the PK has just been terrible lately after being lights-out for so long. What the hell has changed anyway?

Powerplay could still use some tuning up as well. Yeah we scored a critical goal with it tonight, but no shots for the whole minute of 5 on 3 that we got? No excuse for that.

This team looks like a battered shell of what it was just a week ago. Sure all the character is still there, evidenced by the fact that we are hanging around and coming back in games where we get down, but we really need to straighten up and fly right. Especially with the Blues coming to town on monday.

Damn the division is gonna be FUN starting next year. Might as well call it the Black and Blue division, cause every one is gonna beat each other unconscious in pursuit of the division title.

 

[Jarick]

What a weekend for the refs. Botched several calls again last night.

Wild again were struggling and playing from behind. Like the stat they showed, they have not been as good the last week or so. Took them a while to get going and required some clutch scoring again. Which is good that they can pull out of it, but they need to get out of this funk before they start sliding down the standings. Because, just like every other year that they start doing well, Vancouver keeps winning (six straight before last night). Wild win seven straight, Vancouver wins six straight, ugh.

Clark was a refreshing addition. I think he was either getting too cute in his end or maybe it's rust, but offensively he was excellent. Great shot and liked to use it.

Koivu in beast mode. He's 10th in centers for scoring. But he's not a top line center.

Ugh, Heatley. That's all I'm going to say.

Tough night for Backstrom too, of course LA has elite shooters but we're not seeing those automatic saves anymore.

But in the shootout Backs stood tall and holy crap our top three guys are amazing. Just amazing. I called the Cullen 5-hole but thought Koivu would fake backhand shoot forehand, he went bread and butter.

Quick just wasn't good tonight. Leaping out of his net and falling forward, going down quickly, if we had some of the puck luck from a couple weeks ago, could have had ten goals on him.

 

[MK9]

Man, Kings fans' egos on this board are insane.

If this team won the cup, you're fooling yourself if you don't think a lot of the Wild fans here on this board would do the exact same thing.

 

[this providence]

I don't know, I didn't care for Clark as much as everyone else. Sure, he jumped up in the rush a few times and got a couple of shots through (quite the feat for this defense). However, his gaps at the blueline are the worst this team's seen since Nick Schultz. Completely unacceptable. On the Dustin Brown goal, he was straight beaten out of the corner by Brown. Can't be beaten 1-1 on a penalty kill and we seen the result when you are. Gilbert played it right, BTW.

As far as the game, the Wild definitely aren't in the Kings' league yet. They get up and down much better and every line separates puck from body in the offensive zone often. Granted, this is a team that won the cup last season and they've got several high end talents. Nothing to be ashamed of but it shows you where they need to get to.

Got the 2 points, though, which is all that matters. I want to see playoff games again. Don't care how they get there this season.

 

[THEALLKNOWING*]

Stoner brutal, but don't forget is pairing mate Spurgeon. He doesn't exactly cover-up for this pairing mate very well either. Come playoff time, assuming the Wild make-it, he is going to get destroyed by big forwards. Just like last night.