 |
| Visnovsky, Ducks defenseman (photo: Ikiri) |
With both teams fighting for their playoff lives, Anaheim may have just seen their faint hopes of post-season play fall by the wayside. An early goal by Kings captain Dustin Brown, a pair from newly acquired Jeff Carter and Jonathan Quick in net was more than enough to shut down the Ducks offense.
You can’t really fault the visiting team for trying though – they outshot LA 31-20, won the battle at the faceoff circle (52% vs 48%), plus were neck-and-neck with hits (29 to 31) and blocked shots (10 to 9). The difference was special teams, where the Kings picked up a pair of goals and the Ducks came away empty-handed.
And that was one of the key themes back in the locker room following their third loss of the season in LA…
Ryan Getzlaf on the overall game – “It’s a tough one. You know what, we’re pretty disappointed in this locker room, mostly with our effort. We weren’t as good as we needed to be to play tonight. They came out and played a strong game, and we didn’t respond the way we needed to, especially our special teams.”
Getzlaf addresses if their playoff hopes gone – “No, we’re excited. We’re excited to play every night and excited to get back in this thing, and working hard to get there. We lost the special teams battle tonight, and that was the difference in the hockey game…There’s no doubt in here that we can still make this thing happen…Our group tonight has never stopped believing this whole time, and we’re not going to now.”
Lubomir Visnovsky on the overall game – “Right now, we go like one, two wins, and two losses, and we go up and down. This is a very tough time for us. We need more wins. It’s hard to say something.”
Coach Bruce Boudereau quotes:
On the special teams battle – “Our special teams were horrible. We can’t kill a penalty and we can’t score a goal on the power play. That being said, they were some of the worst calls that I’ve seen in a long time. In a game of this importance, we can’t have officiating making calls like that. There were three penalties that weren’t penalties I know of that we took. Granted, they scored and probably sour grapes that they scored, but those things can’t happen. It’s too important and there is too much at stake for everybody not coming to do their job, whether it’s us guys or whether it’s the other guys over there.”
On the fact he normally doesn’t speak much about bad calls – “No, I’ve held it in all year because all year there are things; everybody makes mistakes. If we are busting our ass all night long and playing our fifth game in seven nights, we needed better from them. I don’t know what their schedule is, but if it’s four nights in a row or what have you we can’t have that. It’s just bad calls and I haven’t paid too much attention to whether [the Kings] deserved their calls, but I know the calls on Sbisa’s slash, Bonino’s interference, and Hagman’s trip were not penalties; not even close.”
On the impact bad calls can have on his team’s overall play – “What is does is that it gets everybody frustrated on the bench and then they lose their focus and start yelling at the referees. The referees start yelling back and so the focus on the game is gone. It’s a bog part of it.”
More from the Kings locker will be posted soon. In the meantime, see below for additional Kings-Ducks articles.
The Mayor
www.twitter.com/MayorNHL
www.facebook.com/MayorsManor
Special thanks to John Rosen of Fox Sports West for the Getzlaf and Perry quotes. You can follow him on twitter here.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Kings-Ducks: The first time it mattered this much
Penner on Corey Perry ‘milking it’ and the Hockey Gods
Mike Richards on Corey Perry and not doing stupid things
Two Minutes in the Box with… Bobby Ryan – talks about his friendships in LA
