Kings Talk | LA Kings
Kings Talk - 11/23 v SEA
This is the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. Great, rolls it in front, kicked along, left circle, and a backhander, safe rebound, scores! A great feed from Alex Turcott to Alex LaFariaire. Time now for King Star. Were you the listeners and fans, sound off with your reaction and questions. Call 866-961 ESPN. That's 866-961-3776. Tell us what's on your mind. We'll also take a look at the stars of the game. Game highlights at the out-of-town score board. It's time for King Star. Right now on the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. Now, here's your host, Jesse Cohen. Welcome back, King Spans. I am Jesse Cohen. You're listening to King Star. Coming to you live from the Nick Nixon broadcast center on the upper concourse of crypto.com arena. Final score here in downtown LA. You're Los Angeles Kings to the Seattle Kraken. One, we're taking your questions and comments about the game, the team, and anything else on your mind. Call 866-961 ESPN. That's 866-961 ESPN. If you don't like to call or you don't like being on the phone but you still want your thoughts, questions, or comments heard. You can text in or leave a voicemail. It's 747-326-0093. That's 747-326-0093. Again, the Kings win two to one against the Seattle Kraken. This was a team, two points behind them at the start of the game in the Pacific Division standings. I know that some people call it a must-win game. I said to people that would listen to me that this was as close to a must-win game as you could get in the month of November with 60-some games left to be played, but the Kings win. So that's what's important. They move to 25 points in the standings. The Seattle Kraken remain with 21. So this game would have been what we call a four-point swing. If Seattle had won, they would have moved into a tie with the Kings with 23 points. Instead, the Kings now tied with Calgary for second place in the Pacific Division, both teams with 25 points. Just one point behind the Vegas Golden Knights sitting in first place in the Pacific Division with 26. Edmonton with 22, they are the second wild card. Vancouver and Seattle, both a point behind Edmonton with 21. So the Kings move four points ahead of the Seattle Kraken. And I know it's early to be counting games in hand in single points. There's still three-quarters of the season to be played, but that's where we're at right now. The Kings have been able to compile points while they sort out their injury situations, their blue line with the continued absence of Drew Dowdy. Now the Kings without Darcy Kemper services for a few more games, perhaps longer. We don't know. But David Riddick getting it done this week, only allowing one goal against Seattle and one goal against Buffalo. The Kings weren't able to make that performance for David Riddick stand up in the Buffalo game, but tonight David Riddick played incredibly well. There were some massive saves by Dave Riddick and ultimately the Kings hold on to collect the 2-1 victory. Let's go ahead and take a look at the three stars of the game because all three are from your LA Kings tonight. Your third star of the game with the first goal of the game, his tenth of the season, Adrien Kempe, on a very nice assist from Alex Turkot and Anjay Kopatar. He scores again, his tenth of the season to make it one to nothing. Your third star of the game, Adrien Kempe with a goal, one point plus one, four shots on goal in 19 minutes and 24 seconds. Your second star of the game, David Riddick, previously mentioned, stopped 19 of 20 shots for a 950 save percentage. And again, some big flurries, some big moments, came up big at the end to keep the score 2-1 to secure the win for your LA Kings second star, big save, Dave. David Riddick and your number one star of the game you heard him interviewed on the bench following the game, Quentin Byfield. And we were talking about it in the press box. Nobody could remember ever having seen Quentin Byfield's score on a one-timer like that. And you haven't had a chance to hear it yet 'cause the episode hasn't been published, but I recorded an episode of all the Kings men yesterday with Jim Fox and Nick Nixon. It was our 20-game update to the top 10 questions facing the Kings for the 2024-25 season. And in that conversation, Jim Fox talked a great length about how Quentin Byfield had been practicing his shot and said that he was confident that you would start to see Quentin Byfield scoring goals by shooting, not by driving to the net, not by deeking, stick handling, scoring in tight, not tip-ins, not rebounds, et cetera. But an actual shot from distance scored as a result of his shooting ability. And we saw that here tonight. Quentin Byfield scores his third goal of the game. It was the game winner, 6-0-3 into the second period of power play goal, assisted from Fiala and Copitar, a really nice assist from Fiala. But Quentin Byfield, again, scoring with his shot, which has probably been even at the highest peak of his play, even when he was showcasing his strengths on a nightly basis. The one thing you could point to was, well, he's not scoring by shooting the puck. He's scoring, again, by crashing the net, rebounds, tip-ins, deeks, you know, one-on-one moves where he got it in very tight and used his hands to move the puck around, partially using that reach. This was just, this was a sort of traditional, if you will, hockey shot, scoring on a shot. So congrats to Quentin Byfield for that. Let's go to the text line, 'cause the text started coming in before the game was even over. This one came at 146. This game against the Kraken is a stalemate. The line match-ups appear to be even on five-on-five play. Both teams are playing it clean, penalty-free, makes for a fast game, whichever team capitalizes on the other team's mistakes is going to prevail. That's pretty accurate. And at one point, I noticed that the game was moving incredibly fast. The first period seemed to be over before you knew it. And other than a strong start to the game by LA, it did feel like a pretty evenly matched game. The Kings were all over Seattle in the first five minutes of the first period. And if you look at the game flow, you can see that reflected perfectly. There's a sharp uptick towards the Kings side, and then the rest of the game. Kings build a lot of momentum through the second period. Seattle fights to get some of it back in the third, but it's plateaued after that initial rush by the Kings. So the Kings got off to a hot start. Scoreless after one, but the Kings score two goals quick in the second period. And that was basically it, that was the game. Kings hold on, stopped Seattle from crawling back into the game. They would have made it a bigger gap. There were probably three or four two-on-one rushes. The most obvious being that Bifield and Fogle when neither player wanted to shoot, which then set up the rest of the game for players to shoot early or maybe a little bit too eager. But yeah, I agree with this text from the 323. For the most part, the game was a stalemate. Kings capitalized on the Kraken's mistakes. They scored on their one power play opportunity, and they stopped Seattle from scoring on their three scoring opportunities. So that's it. Special teams win the game for your LA Kings. Going back to the text line. We wouldn't have gotten that power play on the goal interference call. Now I'm just dreading how poorly timed the makeup call is going to be, oh, hey, this cray circle thing is kind of cool. Bifield, good movement there. Love how you had puck movement on both sides of the ice and the cross sides of the ice. I'm not a hockey person. I just played when I was fourth-foot tall and thought, dang, that was a bad word. But dang, that was sick. But they didn't say dang. Oh, that powerful play. A powerful play by field rant was by me, by the way, Robert from Glendale. But who else? Well, thanks, Robert from Glendale. We appreciate it. Steve from Hawaii was weighing in all games, so I'm going to edit it down to the last few. Big Save Dave is playing unconscious today, says Hawaii Steve. Big Save Dave, team win. You are correct, Hawaii Steve. Big Save Dave. And it wasn't even just Big Save Dave, because there was that moment. It was it in the third period, where by Riddick, excuse me. Riddick was out, and I can't remember who, but there were two kings basically standing in the way, one in the net, and one out front trying to block any shots when Riddick was trying to collect his composure. So team effort on defense. And speaking of team defense, I was talking exactly about this in the press box during the game, and I said, I think I was probably guilty of some lazy analysis over the last few years. I saw the one-- well, where we know the kings play the 131, the defensively minded, somewhat stale, reserved system, and the end result was that they had incredible shot suppression numbers. And I never actually sat down and did any breaking down of plays or pointing out, oh, here's how the 131 stifles offensive attempts. I just sort of figured, oh, well, it's a math problem. It's there to stop the team from gaining the zone, and so they gain the zone less. They get fewer shots, blah, blah, blah. But now the 131's gone. Matt Roy's gone. Drew Dowdy's gone. And they're still stopping opponents from getting shot attempts and scoring chances. So I'm going to have to ask Jim Hiller or somebody else, what exactly is it about the way the kings play that is so effective at shutting down the opponent's offense? Because even without the 131, even without Matt Roy, even with Drew Dowdy on injured reserve, even with a young player like Grant Clark, Jordan Spence getting more minutes, et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. Their defensive numbers as a team are still dynamite. And you can't just point to one player. You can't just say, well, that's the onjay copitar effect. He's a Selky winner. Of course, they're going to blah, blah. Anjay copitar is only on the ice for so long. Anjay copitar and Phil Dunno are only on the ice for so long. At some point, I need to dive into why and how the kings are so good at shot suppression. That's my homework assignment for myself. Or if you want to weigh in and let us know, call in or text in. Back to the text lines, Dave from Bakersfield, great game from all our first round picks, copitar Lewis, Bifield, Turkot, Kempe, and Clark. Let's keep the momentum going. That's a long list of first round picks. And it's funny, you often forget that Trevor Lewis and Anjay copitar should count in that list as first round picks. But yes, strong game all the way around-- not just from the first round picks, but by everybody. Joseph from Mission Hills, Bifield could have used that empty netter at the end, and tired of everyone looking for a better shot via the pass like right in front of the net on a 2-on-1. Don't disagree. Consistent energy for most of the game equals a should-out. I don't think it was, Joseph. This is a very arbitrary thing I know, and I'm sorry that I constantly say no when people suggest it. But that shot that beat David Riddick to deny him the shut-out-- it was a nice shot. There was nothing flooky about it. It just beat him. I went back and watched the replay, because I had to hunch this might come up. In my way of thinking the should-out, or the one goal shut-out for those still not familiar, there's got to be an element of either total flookiness, or the score is so out of whack that it doesn't matter. If it was the difference between 8 to nothing and 8 to 1, and a goalie gets beat on a clean shot with a minute 30 left, well, honest to God, who cares? But this one, that made it close. That made the last minute and a half nail biting time. And it was a perfectly good goal. It beat him clean. There's nothing flooky about it. So for me, personally, that doesn't count. Justin from Beaumont, our team needs to learn how not to not take penalties late in games. We risk the lead often, and I am sure he's not, but it always seems like Tempe is in the box in these moments. Bad offensive penalties, but I like the direction. Yeah, listen, there are a couple of players on this team known for taking offensive zone penalties. It's not great, and I'm sure that they are continuing to work on it. But tonight, it didn't matter. So I'm not going to worry about it tonight. Perhaps the coaching staff can worry about it at a different practice, but one of the models for me this year is what Jim Heller said a few games ago, which is not going to overanalyze a win. Kings win this one, so I am not going to overanalyze it. Go, Steve's go. Steve from Ventura on the 101 freeway, going to my son's hockey game. I was really worried in the first after a strong start, but they definitely got the message to shoot more and go to the net. You should have scored on that 2-on-0, but I'll take the W, by the way. You have a lot of Steve's. I do have a lot of Steve's. You are not wrong, Steve, that call in and write in after each game, go, Steve's go. Yeah, listen, I mean, I just said I'm not going to overanalyze a win, but here I am. I'm going to overanalyze the win. That whole nail biting time at the end of the game, that wouldn't happen if the Kings had scored even once on the four or two-on-ones that they had that they didn't score on. They didn't score, and it didn't cost them, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. Yeah, this could have been a three-to-nothing game or a four-to-nothing game. Had the Kings been a little bit better at burying their chances, but at least they got those chances. Steve from Hawaii, what station is your show on ESPN Radio? Is the USC UCLA game? Well, Steve, the game, the show is not on a ESPN station. The game is on the ESPN app, ESPN LA app. Excuse me, ESPN LA, not ESPN. I don't know how it all works. There are going to be some games this year where we are on 710 in LA. There are going to be some games where we are app only, and those are going to come with not a ton of enhanced notice for us, so you can always listen on the ESPN LA app, but as far as ESPN channels, no, this game will not be on any of those channels. We're going to take our first break right here. When we come back, we'll dive into some numbers, perhaps take a call or two, perhaps read some more text. Kings win two to one over the Seattle crack, and you're listening to Kings Talk on the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. The LA Kings have a new home. Hear the excitement of Kings hockey this season. This fall, 710 ESPN, and the all-new ESPN LA app, is your hope for every moment of the Los Angeles Kings. Cue the excitement of Kings hockey this season. In only one place. Easy to access. Easy to find. Easy to enjoy every Kings game and your favorite Kings podcast. 710 ESPN and the all-new ESPN LA app. LA Kings hockey is on ESPN LA. This is the LA Kings post-cape show. I'll look at everything that went down during today's game. All the reaction and information. This is the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. Welcome back, Kings fans. I am Jesse Cohen. You're listening to Kings Talk coming to you live from the Nick Nixon Broadcast Center on the upper concourse of crypto.com, Marina. Final score here in downtown LA. Your Los Angeles Kings 2, the Seattle crack and 1. We're taking your questions and comments about the game, the team, and anything else on your mind. Call 866-961 ESPN. That's 866-961 ESPN. Or if you can't call in, don't like being on the phone. You can text in or leave a voicemail 747-326-00093. Three stars of the game. As we said in that first segment, Adrian Kempe, star number three, David Riddick, star number two, Quentin Byfield, the first star of the game, scoring his third goal of the year. Game winner assisted from Kevin Fial and Ajay Kopatar. Let's go ahead and listen to those goals right now. First up, to make it one and nothing in the second period, Adrian Kempe, scoring his tenth of the season. It was a long rebound, but no cracking players around it. David Riddick in his career, 2-1 and 0 in three games against Seattle in the slot shot score. Adrian Kempe, set up beautifully. Quick release, 4-19 in the second period, 1-0 L.A. And again, we mentioned Quentin Byfield, the number one star of the game, scoring his third of the season to make it 2-0 at the time. Kopatar, back to Fiala, down low, back to Fiala. I shot. I think Decor got an arm on it. Out to Kopatar at the blue line. Kopatar for Byfield, to Fiala, to Kopatar for Byfield for scores. Quentin Byfield from the base of the right circle, a one timer. Power play goal, 2-0 L.A. And it's interesting after the Buffalo game that the Kings lost, 1-0. Jim Hiller spoke to the media following the game, and he made a lot of comments that a number of people that I spoke into or saw commenting themselves seemed to take issue with. He said it was a great game. We heard it from the players that it was a great game against Buffalo. They lost 1-0. And I remember thinking, as I heard the comments, I don't know that I agree with that, that it was a great game. And some of the comments were, you know, something along the lines of, "Well, if we had scored on the power play, "it would have been a different game. "It would have been one to nothing. "Things might have gone differently, et cetera, et cetera." Blah, blah, blah. And I remember thinking, "Yeah, okay, but you didn't. "So what are we even talking about here?" But then tonight, I'm not sure that tonight was that significantly different from the Buffalo game, other than the fact that the Kings scored. They allowed a goal in both games. One goal allowed in each of the two games against Buffalo in Seattle. But the pucks went in twice tonight. And again, two goals is not necessarily enough to get it done on a night-to-night basis. The Kings still need to worry about scoring more consistently. But one game they allowed a goal, and they lost. And another game they allowed one goal, and they won. So the overlying issues facing the team may still be the same. But in this case, you go 500 in a week where you only have two games. Now, next week, they have four games, plus the Thanksgiving, wedged in between two of them. They traveled to San Jose on Monday to take on the Sharks. They have Winnipeg at home on Wednesday. That should be a tough game. Winnipeg is an incredibly good team. Thursday is Thanksgiving. Then Friday, they have a 12-30 start against Anaheim in Anaheim. Then back-to-back games on the 30th, they have Ottawa at home, a 4 p.m. start in the afternoon. So a weird schedule for that week, and weird start times for two games on back-to-back days. Theoretically, the Kings should do all right in this coming week, four games coming up. If they only allow one goal per game, and if they score more than one, obviously they'll win all of them. But they're going to have to sort out the scoring situation. And as long as they can do that, they should be all right. Currently, 11 wins, seven losses, and three overtime losses. 5.95 points percentage. That puts them in third place in the Pacific as well as it does with their points. Goal differential plus six. At home, six, two, and one away, five, five, and two. So, you know, we keep coming back to the word consistency. I'm not sure that this game changed. Well, I know that this game doesn't change anything. But we are beginning to see some consistent standards last through every game. One of them is they limit chances. We mentioned this in the first segment. They're still, you know, an elite team when it comes to limiting offensive chances. The goal tending has been more than good enough. The issues are the power play and 5.05 scoring. Those are the ones. Those are the issues that are sort of up and down again. We talked to Jim Fox and Nick Nixon. Jim Fox answered one of the questions, which was what did the Kings have to do to make the play. His issue was you have to score on the power play. Well, we saw them go one for one tonight. So, it's a good start after going over five against Buffalo. But now they have to keep that up. They have to keep that momentum going. We have to see more goals coming from the power play. Let's go ahead and take a look at the forward lines because the Kings, you know, we knew going into this game that there wouldn't be drastic changes from the previous game. And there weren't Turkot, Copitar and Kempe. 11 minutes, 34 seconds at five on five. 11 shot attempts for just three against. That's fantastic. That's a great night for that line. And by the way, the reason we knew that there wouldn't be any changes heading in was because Jim Hiller spoke to the media about an hour before the game and let everybody know that there wouldn't be any changes. We've got a call right now though. Jim in Redondo Beach. What's going on, Jim? Jesse, I was just wondering for a gold tender that has a nickname, big saved Dave. Yes, Jim. He's playing with it. He's playing a very technically sound, isn't he? Well, I don't know, Jim. I'm not a gold tender and I'm not a gold tender analyst. All's I know is he's keeping the puck out of the net. It just seems to me like he is. Instead of bouncing around, he is so controlled. Well, you know what? Tonight there was that one moment and I'd love to know what you think about a Jim in Redondo Beach. The play where he was out of the net and I didn't see who the king's defenseman was that planted himself squarely behind him in the net to block any shots. Would you consider that sound play by the entire team in that scenario? Well, that was a scramble situation. Edmondson in front and Brad Clark tending gold in behind. It was a breathtaking moment, I'll say, just by the fact that I was holding my breath hoping that Seattle didn't score. All right. Well, Jim, we appreciate you calling in. Big Save Dave absolutely getting the work done tonight and again against Buffalo. This is a back-to-back sequence of games where Dave Riddick did his job and head coach Jim Hiller was actually asked in that media availability I just referenced before the game about the luxury of having a player like Big Save Dave stepping up his game with the temporary absence of Darcy Riddick. And, you know, Dave, excuse me, Darcy Kemper, Darcy Riddick. Dave Riddick has been, I don't know if excellent is the right word, but he's absolutely been more than competent in his time in a king's jersey, excellent at times for sure, and showing off those skills there tonight. Back to the line combinations and time on ice that they played tonight, more to know in Fiala, 11 minutes and 31 seconds. That matches a copitar campaign. Turquot, almost to the second, 11 minutes, 34 seconds to the copitar line, 11 minutes, 31 seconds to the to know more in Fiala line. That line was 10 shot attempts for 11 shot attempts against the 5 on 5, so held pretty much evenly or a stalemate, as one of the textures said earlier. Focal, Bifield, and LaFeria are 10 minutes and 3 seconds. 13 shot attempts for 9 shot attempts against. So that line did their work. The copitar line did their work. And then the de no line and the Hellenius line both essentially held to 50% shot attempts for shot attempts against. And Jim Fernando Beach now texting. But it was Jim Fox, for those of you who didn't recognize the voice. But so that was it. Most of those lines stayed consistent the entire game. Lewis skated 48 seconds with copitar and campaign, but that's neither here nor there. The Kings again doing an excellent job at dominating play against an opponent. All strengths, the Kings had 58 shot attempts for, to 44 shot attempts against. And if you look at blocked shots, both teams had 15 blocked shots. So solid performances all the way around. We are going to take another break here when we come back some final thoughts on the game. And more perhaps of your calls and texts. Kings win 2-1 over the Seattle Kraken. You're listening to Kings Talk on the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. LA Kings Hockey is on ESPN LA. This is the LA Kings Post Game Show. Look at everything that went down during today's game. All the reaction and information. This is the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. Welcome back Kings fans. I'm Jesse Cohen. You're listening to Kings Talk Company live from the Nick Nixon Broadcast Center on the upper concourse of Crypto.com Arena. Final score here in downtown LA, your Los Angeles Kings 2, the Seattle Kraken 1. We're taking your questions and comments about the game, the team and anything else on your mind. Call 866-961 ESPN. If you don't like to call, you don't like to talk on the phone, but you want to have your thoughts, questions or comments heard. You can leave a voicemail or text us at 747-326-0093. That's 747-326-0093. Which is the phone number I picked in honor of the 1993 Kings because that's when I really started to fall in love with this team like so many other fans around my age. Okay, the Kings text line, we got another one, Steve from Yorba Linda here. Kings played a solid game even though early it was almost looking like a repeat of the Buffalo game. Glad for Beyfield to get off the Schneider, Big Save Dave came through, played a great game onto the Sharks. Yeah, I actually thought the Kings dominated the first five minutes of the game. They couldn't score, which is fine. The rest of the first period was a bit of a back and forth Seattle tried to climb back in a little bit. But yeah, LA took over the first five minutes of the game, couldn't score. They did get those two goals early in the second period, which seems to be a habit happening recently in Kings games where score is 0-0 for a very long time. Then one team, whether it's the Kings or their opponent scores two quick goals in a row and then that's kind of the game. I wish I understood why that was happening, but I do not. But either way, tonight it goes in the Kings favor. They wind up with the 2-1 win. Big Save Dave really coming through this week. Again, not just in this game, but also the Buffalo game. You only allowed one goal against Buffalo. The Kings couldn't make that hold up. They did make it hold up tonight. They both, they come away with two points out of a possible four in this two game week. We've talked a lot over the last few games about the Kings schedule remaining in the month of November. Again, four games coming up this week, Monday night in San Jose, Wednesday at home against Winnipeg, Friday on the road against the Ducks. We all know that will be essentially not a home home game, but an asterisk home game. Kings fans do a great job of traveling to Anaheim and with a 12-30 start on a Friday on a holiday weekend. I expect to see a lot of Kings fans there. Again, back here at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday the 30th to take on the Ottawa Senators before entering the month of December. Going into this game, the Kings were four, four and one if I'm not mistaken in the month of November. That means they're five, four and one now. They have a good chance to finish the month of November with a winning record and then some in the month of November. They beat another Pacific Division opponent tonight, a team that was directly behind them in the standings. They lost to Seattle tonight in regulation. Seattle would have moved into a tie with them. So while this game wasn't a must win because there's plenty of time left on the schedule had they lost. It was, you know, every game that they play like tonight where they've had a loss in the previous game or multiple losses in multiple previous games, every new game is an opportunity to move closer to consistency, to start a new trend of consistency. I'll even throw in the last game against Buffalo, which was a loss and a loss where I feel like I personally and I know another few other people disagree with the coaches and the players in their evaluation of it as a good game. Now, keep in mind, it's my, you know, my biases that I'm a fan and I'm emotional and I may not be looking at the game totally, rationally or objectively. But either way, the last two games I think are just as good a chance to start establishing some of that consistency. Again, limiting shot attempts, limiting goals against the Kings now need to work on scoring goals. And, you know, again, you'll hear that episode of All the Kings Men very soon where we do our quarter pole revisit. And Jim Fox talks about the importance of scoring on the battle play, excuse me. The importance of scoring on the power play, the importance of some of the bigger names on the team scoring more consistently. We're seeing Adrian Kempe starting to get going his 10th tonight. We know Anjay Kopitar is doing his job, Quentin Bifield getting old goal tonight, very important. Kevin Fiala having an assist on a goal tonight, very important. So, again, things potentially moving in the right direction and that's all you can look for. In an 82 game season where every time you win or lose, there's another game right around the corner, you want to look for consistency. And you hear that from every coaching staff in the league, don't get too down for the lows, don't get too high for the highs. Maintain that steady even approach. And in this week, again, one goal per game against per game. Danny Dakota and Peyton from traffic, big save Dave, top 10 in goals against average in the league, I think, according to them. Goal tenders are such a weird group. You know, I say this multiple times of season, in any given season, there's only somewhere between three and 11 tops. It's really three between three and eight in my mind, but we'll just expand it a little bit. Somewhere between three and ten goal tenders that actually matter. The game in game out are actually giving you performances that are causing you to win games. There's probably some on the opposite spectrum that are causing you to lose games, but any given season, there's only so many goalies. And it's more than a few, but less than a few handfuls of goal tenders that really matter. The rest of them, as I always say, are kind of just, they're just bodies. They're fine. They're not bums. They're competent NHL goal tenders, but you could sort of swap one in for another one and it's not going to make a difference. And you can tell that because at the end of the year, I can't remember it was last season or this offseason, but there were five teams where every goal tender just moved to the next subsequent team. And I was like, Arizona's team went to Ottawa. Ottawa's team went to Philadelphia. His team went to Carolina. Carolina's goal went to Ottawa. Everybody just moved one seat to the left. And that's how you know these decisions are not necessarily franchise changing. But having said that, David Riddick is a goaltender where wherever he's gone, he has put up decent numbers. And he's having a chance to do it here now. You know, unfortunately Darcy Kemper currently injured and not available to play. But if you are going to go with a tandem rather than a, you know, a Connor Hellabook, for example, one of the three or four goalies right now that actually matter. And I don't mean to say that the rest of them don't. I just mean, at the end of the year we know who the Vezana candidates are going to be. And that's what I'm talking about when I say they matter. But David Riddick filling in absolutely tremendously, doing the job, keeping the Kings in games, and earning every penny of his paycheck. Another tweet from, excuse me, text from the 818. On the 2-1-0 with Bayfield and Fogel, I expected a shot as soon as one of them saw an opening. The court did not seem to be moving much, so you would think there had to be some room to shoot it. At what point do you take the shot since you're running out of real estate? That's an excellent question. And when they finally did take the shot, I thought, well, at this point, why not keep passing it? I know you run out of real estate at the end, but, yeah, the court didn't seem to be bothered too much by the constant back and forth thing. I feel like you have to shoot it earlier in that sequence of back and forth passes to try and catch him off guard. But I understand the allure of trying to catch him because there's no defensemen pressuring you. But you've either got to slow down and keep passing it and go for that, you know, in for a penny, in for a pound. You've tried five passes, you might as well go for a nine, right? Like, why not? Or get it off as quick as you can, catch him thinking that you're going to try a backdoor. But they didn't, and unfortunately, that set the tone for the next three or four, O on twos or two on ones where, because that one was so comically mishandled, not that he did a terrible job of handling the situation, but just as an observer, there were so many passes back and forth, and then for it to result in nothing, you're sort of like, oh, man. So then every time a player got another situation like that, I don't know if they were thinking directly to that moment, but at least I was by the third time I was thinking, oh, come on, how many times were we going to do this? So I don't know, I don't know how players think about events earlier in a game. Totally unrelated to anything Kings wise or hockey wise, as I'm sitting here in the Crypto.com arena broadcast with the Nick Nixon broadcast center, I'm watching the arena crew set the stage for tonight's Lakers game. It's a double header here at Crypto.com arena, and it really is an impressive job, as I'm watching the basketball court get laid out in front of my eyes. They've covered the ice in rubber mats, now they're laying out the hardwood floor. It's an incredibly coordinated effort. If you've ever watched a time-lapse video of how they do it, it's pretty impressive. Also impressive again was the play of David Riddick tonight. He was the second star of the game, Quentin Bifield, the number one star of the game, Adrian Kempe, the third star of the game. And I think that is going to do it for this edition of Kingstalk, final score tonight from Crypto.com arena here in downtown LA. Your Los Angeles Kings 2, the Seattle Kraken 1, LA Kings Hockey returns to ESPN LA Monday night when your Kings face off against the Sharks at SAP Center in San Jose, California. Pre-game show begins at 7 p.m. Pacific. Pup drop is scheduled for 7.30 p.m. here on ESPN LA. You've been listening to LA Kings Hockey for Nick Nixon, Jim Fox, Daryl Evans, Josh Shapers, Zach Dooley, Karlin Baith, Jim and Redondo Beach. Let me get to those textures. The texture from 818, Danny Dakota and Peyton, Steve from Yorba Linda, Steve from Hawaii, Steve from Ventura, Justin from Beaumont, Joseph from Mission Hills, Dave from Bakersfield, Robert from Glendale, and a texture from the 323 are Inarena producer Jake Warner, our network producer Jeff Cabot. I'm Jesse Cohen. Thanks for listening, Kings fans. We'll see you Monday night. You've been listening to Kings Talk along the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network. Bithfield wins the face off. Back for Fiala, steps to the middle, feeds right side burrows. Back for Fiala, top of the left circle. Nice move, Fiala, centers for Bithfield, but kicked around in the door. Never miss a moment this season. Follow the Kings wherever you are with just one tap on the all-new ESPN LA app. Join us next time for the excitement of LA Kings Hockey.
The LA Kings postgame show from November 23rd, 2024 hosted by Jesse Cohen. This broadcast followed the Kings 2-1 over the Seattle Kraken on the ESPN LA Kings Radio Network.