Farewell
Joined: Jul. 2021
Posts: 3,060
Likes: 5,225
(Warning: Rant incoming)
The Kings are a dirty, garbage team. Lazotte tripped Pointer RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE REF, clear skate-on-skate, no call, then scores (admittedly, Foote did cross-check Lazotte after the fact). Then, seconds later, Danault with a blatant slew-foot of Pointer-AGAIN-and the amazing thing is that it WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN CALLED were it not for Pointer understandably going after Danault (amazingly, Point's been in 3 tilts this year-Hornqvist, Garland, and now Danault), after that the refs called the penalty to pacify Cooper and even out the penalties (if they'd called the penalty in the first place. Point's not in the box). Additionally, Durzi cross-checked Hedman during a scrum in front of the net (at least he got penalized), and Brendan Biting Lemieux tried to get Foote to drop the gloves with under a minute to go in the game (Foote turned away and skated up ice, wisely and thankfully). Unbelievable.
On to the actual game, the refs and dirty plays aside. The Lightning carved up the Kings' defense (or lack thereof), which was absolutely abysmal (just look at Bellemare, Hedman's 2nd, and Joseph's goals-WIDE OPEN, with practically all of the defenders on one side of the ice!). Offense was terrific, taking advantage of the chances the Kings served them up on a silver platter repeatedly. Hedman had an absolute whale of a game, with 32+ minutes of ice time and 2 beautiful goals-perfectly placed bullets of wristers-plus an assist on Kuch's PP goal, Joseph was terrific (what a pass to Bellemare, who then deked Peterson into the rafters), as was McDonagh (BEAUTIFUL pass to a WIDE-OPEN Joseph). Vasi didn't have his best game, but at least 2 of the goals weren't his fault (brutal turnover by Sergachev right in front of the net plus the trip of Pointer). Oh, and the fact that they won with only 4-repeat, FOUR D-MEN?! Incredible. Given the circumstances, heck of a job. On to Anaheim.