Ducks at Los Angeles, vs Kings

Coming off an exhaustingly physical game against the Boston Bruins the evening before, our Ducks are in no shape to take on division rivals, the Los Angeles Kings.

Looking at the NHL schedule, yours truly has to ask, why do we face the Kings at the Staples Center on the second night of a back-to-back three times this season??

I understand coach Carlyle wanting to reward Jonas Hiller with yet another start, especially after he handled the second Nashville-Chicago back-to-back with such excellence, but really? Do we need to tire out our number one goaltender at this point in the season? If it were up to me, J.S. Giguere would have started this game.

Yours truly watched this one at the official Ducks watch party at Mutt Lynch's in Newport Beach. Nice sports bar, tasty BBQ wings, would definitely visit again.

I was not expecting much from our hometown heroes tonight, but what I was definitely not wanting was a lower body injury (they're saying it's a knee injury) to Saku Koivu that takes him out of the game. Also, there's a huge hit that my boy Bobby Ryan placed on a King in the final moments of the game that might possibly be under review by the league.

Otherwise, our boys did not play that badly in the first and second periods of the game. However, they just could not generate the needed offense. Two of the Kings goals were lucky pinball bounces that no goaltender would have been able to stop, if only by luck. It was also very apparent that the Kings had studied our game with the Bruins the night prior, and they took our boys to task physically. The game started to get downright angry in the third as penalty minutes piled up.

In the end, I believe the 0-4 score doesn't accurately reflect the efforts and early game play of the Ducks, but I'm hoping that, with two days rest, our boys will be ready to put that winning streak back together for Sunday's matchup here at home against the Calgary Flames.

But first, stay tuned for story and pictures from tonight's Casino Night!