Watching Wednesday night’s series opener between the Kings and the Canucks, I was wildly impressed with the play of Anze Kopitar, Justin Williams and Dustin Brown. They were a pack of hyenas right from puck drop, testing Luongo with quality chances four times in the opening minute. They caused turnovers with their forechecking, pinned the Canucks in the defensive end regularly, and worked together flawlessly.
It was Kopitar’s line who set the tone for the Kings in game one, muzzled the Rogers Arena crowd, and so handily won their matchup that, in twelve and a half minutes of five-on-five ice-time, they changed the entire arithmetic of this series.
But all the chatter the next day was about the impact of Dustin Penner and the matchup between Ryan Kesler and Mike Richards. Even Alain Vigneault glossed over the Kopitar line Thursday, spending more time on Penner and Richards than what appeared to be the real problem.
Magicians call this misdirection.
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