The L.A. Kings, in the midst of 10 game road trip, blanked the Flyers 1-0 this afternoon. Kings goalie Jonathan Quick pitched the shutout, stopping all 40 shots he faced. He made difficult saves in traffic, flawlessly handled some tricky redirections, and overall was the difference as the Kings came into South Philly and took the two points.
The first period was a tight defensive twenty minutes with chances few and far between. In an effort to get the offense going Peter Laviolette juggled his lines by putting Claude Giroux, Mike Richards, and Jeff Carter together. He left the Leino-Briere-Hartnell line intact, and had Andreas Nodl center JVR and Dan Carcillo.
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Carcillo dropped the gloves with Kyle Clifford 2:26 into the first. Clifford clearly got the best of Carbomb, who wasn't his usual pesky self the rest of the way. Here's video of the fight.
Drew Doughty scored the lone goal of the game just 17 seconds into thesecond period. Mike Richards turned the puck over behind the net, andAnze Kopitar found Doughty streaking into the slot who beat SergeiBobrovsky for the game winning goal.
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Claude Giroux tried in vain to dive and break up the pass from Kopitar to Doughty, but Doughty was a step too quick and skated into an empty slot to beat Bob. Otherwise, Bob was solid, stopping 24 of 25 shots including what appeared to be the most painful split ever while stoning Wayne Simmonds on a breakaway chance.
The Flyers went 0-4 on the power play, including an abbreviated 5 on 3 where they lost a key offensive zone draw, which allowed the Kings to send the puck the length of the ice thus killing off the two man advantage. The Flyers couldn't get anything going with the man advantage, prompting the home crowd to lustily boo their effort.
The Kings took the 1-0 lead into the third period, where Quick was called on the stop all 15 shots the Flyers threw at him. The orange and black didn't really play with much of a sense of urgency until after Chris Pronger was boarded by Jarrett Stoll.
Referre Dave Johnson, who was no more than 5 feet from where Stoll boarded Pronger, swallowed the whistle. He did manage to call a roughing Penalty on an incredulous Pronger, who popped back up and gave Stoll a shove. It was an egregious no-call, but in reality the game turned on the Flyers inability to get anything going on their power play opportunities.
NOTES
- Danny Briere led all Flyers skaters in ice time with 22:57.
- The Flyers dominated faceoffs, enjoying a 35-23 advantage at the dot. However, as mentioned above they lost a key draw during a 20 second 5 on 3.
- Mike Richards has now gone eight straight games without a goal.
- Jody Shelley fought Kevin Westgarth in the second. I scored the bout a draw. Here's a link to video of the fight if you'd like to score it yourself.
- The Flyers next head to Tampa where they'll face the Lightning on Tuesday night.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matt Slocum