The LA Kings are always a tough game every year.
They’re big, strong, physical, structured, and can skate. So structured, in fact, that they’ve made a mediocre “franchise” goalie appear to be elite.
No, not Peter Budaj.
Budaj, though, played out of his skull last night in the shutout effort, leading the Kings to a 1-0 overtime win. The Penguins weren’t without their chances, but the Kings stymied them heading into the weekend.
FIRST PERIOD
Summed up in one gif:
Kind of a snoozefest for the first 20 minutes. Typical structured Kings team. Typical dickhead Kings team. Pens PP tried to wake up the game a couple of times, including a 5v3 for 30 seconds, but no dice because Peter Budaj.
SECOND PERIOD
Kings had to kill off 98 seconds of a Matt Greene slashing penalty that was carried over from the first, which helped get the Pens rolling and controlling. The one sustained offensive zone time the Kings managed to put together ended with Jordan Nolan running Murray, putting the Pens back on a powerplay. They didn’t score again, but at one point literally half (10/20) of the Pens shots came with the man advantage.
As the game wore on, the ice tilted more and more in the Penguins favor, presumably because of a combination of the Pens being v good at ice hockey and the Kings playing the night before. But Peter Budaj found a reason for him to change who he used to be; a reason to start over new. And the reason is you, LA. He was the reason the Kings were even still in this game after 40, having to make 20 saves in the second period alone, with 20% of his 3o saves coming off the stick of Malkin.
THIRD PERIOD
As of course is tradition when Kris Letang gets hurt, so does literally everyone else of importance on the Pens blue line. First, Daley didn’t reemerge from the locker room after intermission. Then in the first minute of the period, Dumoulin took a Gaborik shot to the face, forcing him to go down the runway for concussion protocol.
Coach Sullivan on Daley: “He’s being evaluated. I haven’t gotten an update… We’ll probably have more information in the morning."
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) December 17, 2016
Even with the Pens having less d-men than a beer league hockey team, they still kept their heads above water. Probably had a lot to do with how much the Kings were slowing the game down, not that you would really have pushed the pace either if you’re Sullivan and my D was a figurative microdong. (Dumoulin would return midway through the period)
The Kings would end up with their first PP of the game midway through the period after the Pens got the first 4. It would end up getting killed off in large part because Matt Murray is a cherry blossom.
OVERTIME
Since 3v3 OT has started, you’d be hard-pressed to find 2 teams better in OT than the Pens and Kings. Much like your sex life, all it took was a minute to finish. Phil had a tough moment where his stick broke on his shot and the Kings turned it into a 3v1 with Toffoli leading the rush. 1-0
Later
RANDOM NOTES
- Really had a rope-a-dope feel to the game. Not a very fast paced game, largely due to the Kings just finding ways to negate the Pens speed.
- Murray was stellar again. He just makes so many things look so easy.
- Malkin was probably best Penguin. He was just dancing on guys all night. He was so slippery it was like he took a Drew Doughty’s Crisco bath before the game.
- Final shot totals were 39-28 in favor of the Pens. They had 52 attempts to the Kings 50 at 5v5 with Scott Wilson sitting at a +9 on the night. Pens 4th line had a pretty good night in that regard.
The birds head to Toronto tonight to take on Auston Matthews and the rest of the young Maple Leaf team. Do it.
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