I TOLD you the Ducks had solved the Quick puzzle. They turned the guy into a bumbling buffoon – even to the point of his being behind the net for entirely too long and presenting Bobby Ryan with a wide array of twine to choose from a couple minutes into the second period. Watch the game clip (4/6/10 game highlights – the boner-riffic move happens at just after 00:02:10), it’s a real knee-slapper or, if you’re a Kings fan, reason to tear your hair out.
Unfortunately for us, the Kings coach had more sense than Vancouver’s and pulled Mr. Quick in favor of the recently recovered Eric Ersberg.
The Kings wished they could’ve teleported Jonathan Bernier over, but (again, bad for the Ducks) they didn’t need to. Ersberg played like a demon possessed…or a backup goaltender fighting for his position next season. After allowing an unseeable shot by Teemu Selanne later in the second, Ersberg brickwalled the backstop and gave the Kings their chance to roar back and ultimately take the shootout when Anze Kopitar whipped in a sneaky backhander.
In a postgame interview, Scott Niedermayer – our quiet and always composed elder statesman – admitted he wasn’t happy with the way the Ducks played.
It’s a statement we’ve heard time and time again, but it still rings true; “We know that we’re better than this.”
He went on to say, “I hope this is a bitter taste for everybody in this room. We need to learn from this or else we’ll find ourselves in the same situation.
“We came up short of where we want to be. We had some challenges to overcome that we didn’t. I personally can say I didn’t play as well as I would have liked to all season.”
The interesting thing I noticed about those statements is that they don’t sound like something a guy would say if he is planning on hanging up his skates.
Speaking of which, what about Selanne? Whenever he is asked if he will be back next season, he get’s this little kid grin on his face and never gives a definitive answer.
We know he’s not going to get within spitting distance of Jaromír Jágr(what does the guy have, something like 1,000 goals?), but with the Ducks sunk this season, there’s always the chance Selanne will be back for more. I mean, c’mon, if he retires, what’s he gonna do? Expand the putting green in his back garden? Do Finnish aftershave commercials? Get a part-time job at Moomin World?
So now it’s time to do the unthinkable and quote Eric Cartman, “Go Kings, Go!” (What, did you expect me to root for the Sharks???)
On a completely unrelated subject, I just stumbled across this while searching for a pic of J.J. Be warned, it’s waaaaay beyond not pretty. It’s terrifying what an innocent search can unearth.