LA Kings Losing Streak Hits FIVE!

Holy moly, I don't even know what to say anymore! I don't think Terry Murray should have been fired.  I just don't.  And now I'm nervous about who the Los Angeles Kings will hire as their new head coach.  Really nervous.

I only watched the last 5 minutes or so of the game against the Boston Bruins.  I got to see the Kings struggle mightily on the power play.  It's brutal watching the power play without Mike Richards.  In fact, I'm really nervous about how this team will continue to look without him.  The last game he played in was against Florida and the Kings have not won a game in his absence!  IS ANYONE ELSE FREAKING OUT!?!?

(via Everybody Loves Gags via EffYeahMikeRichards)

Simon misses his Mikey

The Kings had some decent scoring opportunities near the end of the game against the Bruins, but just could not get the puck in the net!  Story of the season.  You could just feel the frustration of the players; I kept waiting for a Kings player to angrily pick up the puck and throw it in the net.  How many more losses till this actually happens?

This losing streak will end.  Keep the hope alive, Kings fans!  The season isn't over.  Go Kings Go!!!

The LA Kings are Such a Disappointment Right Now and so is 'The Walking Dead'

I seriously can't figure out why the LA Kings are having such a difficult time scoring goals.  It is so frustrating watching them game after game struggle to clearly enter the offensive zone, get quality scoring chances, and actually score goals.  They've been able to get a lot of shots on goal the past couple games, but quantity does not matter if they're not high quality chances.  Oh, and The Ethan Moreau Experiment is finally over.  Finally.  

(Harry How/Getty Images)

See ya, Moreau!

Good luck in the future!

I can think of two other players off the top of my head who need to get bounced waived as well.  Congrats to Andrei Loktionov and Slava Voynov for playing well enough to stay with the team and get a veteran player waived.  Did anyone else notice how well Loktionov absolutely dominated the play for several shifts in the third period against the Wild?  I'm looking forward to seeing more of that!  Oh, and some goals and wins too......

The LA Kings are just so disappointing right now.  But don't fret guys, because there are plenty of other things that are equally, if not more, disappointing.  Case in point: Season 2 of The Walking Dead.

I didn't start watching The Walking Dead until this year when I noticed people on Twitter talking about the Season 2 Premiere.  The general consensus seemed positive and since Breaking Bad was just about to wrap up, I wanted to have another show on Sunday night to watch.  My husband was a little surprised when I mentioned that I wanted to Netflix the first season of The Walking Dead.  He said something about the writers all getting canned either after the first season or right after the second season started, but I didn't care.  I just wanted to know what everyone on the Twitters was talking about!

Note: Spoiler Alert!  I'll be discussing both Seasons 1 and 2 of The Walking Dead.  

Season 1 of The Walking Dead was pretty good.  It was only 6 episodes so the writers had to reel in the audience with action, suspense, and a somewhat believable plotline.  There was one part that seemed unbelievable (I mean seriously, who would cut off his own hand instead of breaking off the handcuffs??? c'mon!!! and I wasn't buying the half-assed explanation they gave for this occurring) and the audience just had to assume that this character died since he has yet to appear (in real life).  I also think it's kinda ridiculous that the zombies are referred to as 'walkers' when in actuality they can pretty much run when they smell fresh blood.  And how is that in one second an area will be free and clear of the zombies and the next thing you know there's a whole mess of them surrounding the living?

Anyway, minor issues aside, I enjoyed the first season.  I like the actor who plays Rick and knew I had seen him from something.  Recently I finally came across a blog that mentioned he is the guy in Love Actually who was secretly in love with Keira Knightley's character.  Awwwwww, that's why I liked him immediately! And oh my god, his real last name is Clutterbuck!!! Hahahahah!!!  Any hockey fan should appreciate that!

I don't recall ever seeing the actor who plays Shane.  And every episode I struggle to determine if I think he's hot or not.  Ladies, help me out here.  What do you think of him?  

My issues with Season 2 include the following:

• Not much action - my husband mentioned that the show was given the exact or similar budget for Season 2 as they had for Season 1, but they have twice as many episodes to produce this season.  Therefore, there is a lot of filler content and not as much action, which equates to many episodes that are super, ridiculously boring.
• No character development - we have hardly learned anything about this group of people over 6 episodes (the first half of Season 2).  There's some weird father/daughter type of issue going on between the old man and Andrea.  The black man is apparently still alive, but do we know anything about him?  They should have just killed him off and the writers had the perfect opportunity to do it!  We don't know anything more about the battered wife other than she was sad that her daughter was missing for 99% of the second season.  Rick's wife is just too skinny and needs to start eating.  Rick's son needs to start acting more like a kid and stop acting like he's 25 years old.  We probably learned the most about the white trash guy (Daryl) during his adventures searching for Sophia.  Scratch that.  We probably learned the most about the veterinarian old man whose land they're staying on.  And why are we learning about him since the group shouldn't be staying on his land for the remainder of the series?  
• Missing Girl - oh. my. goodness.  They spent almost the entire first half of the season searching for Sophia who went missing in the woods.  This story line should have been wrapped up in two episodes max.  
• Advancing the story - Wasn't this group headed towards an Army base?  Didn't the assistant coach from the movie Miracle whisper something (presumably very important) to Rick before he went down in a huge ball of flames at the CDC at the end of Season 1?  I'm so glad Rick's kid got shot in the stomach AND DIDN'T DIE, which gave the writers an excuse to stall the story for 5 episodes!!  
• Inconsistencies - I could have sworn in the first season, they explained that the only way the walkers can't identify you is when you have their blood or a dead person's blood on you (because this way the walkers think you're already dead).  But in this season, apparently as long as they can't see you, then you're safe!  I didn't buy for a second that by hiding underneath a car that walkers wouldn't be able to notice them as they walked inches from their faces!!  That was total B.S.  Also, what about the fact that walkers are attracted to noise.  They're talking up a storm and shooting guns at gun practice and not a single walker approached them.  And how is it that not a single walker approached that house they're staying at??  

So now that we know Sophia is dead (or was a zombie) I hope that early in the second half of this season either the group leaves for the Army Base or kills the man who owns the land so they can stay there without conforming to his idiotic rules.  Also, Shane is clearly crazy so he needs to go.  I think the group should split up.  Despite my disappointment with this season, of course I'm going to keep watching.  I have to know how this season will end! They better make it to the Army Base.  They better reveal what the CDC scientist/doctor said to Rick.  Rick's wife better stop being such a huge c**t.  They need to develop the Asian dude's story because I like him!  T-Dog, jeeeeesus did the writers really name the only black guy, T-Dog??, well, he needs to go because he's just dead weight.  And for the love of zombies everywhere, there needs to be more action!!  More zombie attacks!!!  I'm not giving up on the this show just yet. But if the show continues to be boring and filled with inconsistencies and the story doesn't advance, then I will call it quits after this season, that is if the show doesn't get canceled after this outing.

Not the Greatest Weekend of Kings Hockey

Poor Penner. That guy just can't get a break.

Photo by:David Sheehan

Is it just me or does Penner look like he's aged 10 years in the past 6 months?

Simon Gagne was out for both games this past weekend, so Dustin Penner was moved from the second line to the top line playing with Anze Kopitar and Justin Williams. Scott Parse took Penner's spot alongside Dustin Brown and Mike Richards. So what happened? Mike Richards scored!!! Dustin Brown and Willie Mitchell assisted on the goal.  As soon as it happened all I could think was, "Poor Penner". As soon as he moves off that line Richards scores....coincidence? The Kings looked out of sorts against Phoenix and like the game against the New Jersey Devils, where there was absolutely no chemistry among the team, Coach Murray switched up the lines in the third period. Penner ended up playing either on the "third" or "fourth" line (although can you really associate numbers to the lines when they're so mixed up?) and Trent Hunter moved up to the top line (exception: any line with Kopitar will always be the #1 line). And TA-DA!!!! Kopitar scored a goal and Trent Hunter was credited with an assist. Poor Penner...

Other than the goals there wasn't really all that much to cheer about. Drew Doughty was finally back in the lineup, but he looked really, really, really rusty.  The Kings had a power play late in regulation and Doughty and Jack were on the ice and I couldn't help but think maybe it would have been better to have only Jack on D and replace Doughty with Stoll.  Overtime losses always suck, but I suppose it's slightly better than losing in the shootout.

The following day the Kings traveled to Colorado for one hell of a frustrating game.  The Kings had a wide advantage in shots, yet I was shocked the Kings had that many shots on goal because so few of them seemed threatening.  The Avs got a fluky goal when the puck hit the boards weird and instead of going around the net, where Quick was ready to meet it, it ended up flying back out in front of the net where an Avs player easily tapped it home.  But one fluky goal does not a loss make!  (that makes sense, right?)  The Avs also scored a short-handed goal (totally inexcusable) and capitalized on a neutral zone turnover.  Meanwhile the Kings just couldn't finish five-on-five.  I feel like it's last season all over again.

I'm beginning to get a little worried that Simon Gagne is the key to the success of the top line.  Williams-Kopitar-[anyone but Gagne] is nowhere near as effective as Williams-Kopitar-Gagne, which is scary considering Gagne's injury history. The second line looked much better in the game against Colorado; Scott Parse had a strong game (except for those freaking penalties!) and Dustin Brown was doing everything but score.  Even Penner had a good game!  I felt bad for him again because he drew two penalties, but failed to get an assist on either power play goal.  Awww, poor Penner!

But you know what? Penner didn't play all that bad this weekend. In fact, I thought he played pretty well. It might not be saying much considering how he started the season, but I thought he had his best game against Colorado (I feel like a broken record, but he did!). He looked good on the forecheck, forced some turnovers, created scoring chances, drew a couple penalties that led to power play goals, and threw his body around. It's finally looking like he's playing a complete game. I agree with all the Penner haters that he should have looked like this since Game 1, but at least he's making progress and it looks like his game is finally coming around.  The forwards are having an awfully difficult time scoring at even-strength, so hopefully Penner can get his groove back (from 2007) and Gagne can get healthy so the Kings can ice three solid lines and the guys can finally get some consistency with their linemates.  I was bummed on Sunday when I realized the next game wasn't until Thursday.  But it looks like the team could use those days off for Murray to give them a stern-talking to (I just can't imagine him raising his voice, he reminds me of my dad in that manner) and for the guys to get healthy.  At least the power play is finally clicking; Jamie Kompon must be relieved since apparently assistant coaches can get fired mid-season. The Kings are strong up top and there's no excuse for them to only eek out  two goals a game.