Matty Roy was the Kings best player last night. Dude is nails, he is just rock solid on D and is excellent at all areas in the defensive zone. He really carried Anderson in the game, who looked overmatched physically quite a few times on the boards and down low around his net.
Alt will return to the AHL as soon as Walker and MacD are back. It’s a good idea to get him some nhl paychecks early in the season so he’s feeling happy when sent to the Reign. Clague had an up and down game, but didn’t stand out in a bad way to me. Pairing him with Walker doesn’t inspire confidence, but Walker is a very good player, so it might work against favorable matchups and may score the odd goal.
Doughty seems to have infected Maata with the “tries to do too much” bug. His late game obstruction penalty was telegraphed 3 seconds before the infraction was called. I lost count of the number of times he or Drew were spinning in circles or down on the ice.
You’d have liked to see some goals out of the Iafallo, Kempe, Vilardi group, but AA got his first, and I think he fits in that group. The forwards who are tweeners / JAGs didn’t impress positively, overall. Lizotte was ineffective and I was glad to see Vilardi with more shifts by the end of the game. Some of those minutes were from the large number of PPs the Kings had.
For all the talk about Coach Todd’s system, I’m pressed to describe exactly what it is after over a year. It’s obvious that the Kings score more goals now, by about 1 a game. It’s still disappointing to hear Kopitar say post game that the team needed to lock things down to preserve the win in the third period. You’d hope to hear him talk about keeping up the attack and answering back with more goals.
Overall, the vets produced, which is what they’re paid to do. And the vets got the most ice time. Carter had some nice plays for sure, which gives me hope that he raises his trade value. Can’t say the same for Quick, who posted an .852 SV % on less than 30 shots. Can’t wait for Cal to get some starts and great to have Kings hockey back.
