Episode 35- Ducks & Kings Special Teams Woes

Discover the latest buzz around the Ducks and Kings as we celebrate John Gibson's return to practice, speculate on his future, and introduce the Kings' promising first-round pick, Liam Greentree. Join us for a lively chat about the Ducks' recent highlights, including Ryan Strome's electrifying goal, Troy Terry's power play breakthrough, and Lukas Dostal's standout performance. We also humorously critique the Kings' penalty kill woes and look ahead to their clash with Utah.

Brace yourself for a rollercoaster ride of emotions as we unpack the Kings' baffling inconsistency. How did they bounce back against San Jose after a crushing defeat by Vegas? Our "Royal Rant" tackles the Kings' strategic mishaps, particularly their curious player positioning choices. And just when you thought things couldn't get spicier, we debate the highs and lows of recent player performances, with Alex Turcotte emerging as a resilient hero of the week despite his past injuries.

Celebrate the triumphs and lament the disappointments in our weekly player analysis. We shine the spotlight on the Ducks’ Troy Terry, who emerged from a power play drought to capture our "Player of the Week" accolade. Meanwhile, Alex Killorn and Mason McTavish land on our "lame ducks" list for falling short of expectations. Rally with us as we call on fans to voice their thoughts on Coach Hiller's decisions, and cheer on the potential greatness lurking within the teams, just waiting to be unleashed.


Chapters

00:00 Intro
01:11 Ducks News
02:30 Kings News
05:50 League News
09:18 Freeway Faceoff Game 1
22:43 Ducks vs Sharks
31:00 Kings vs. Vegas
34:31 Kings vs. San Jose
37:52 Royal Rant: Frustrations with the Kings' Strategy
41:49 Kings Player of the Week: Alex Turcotte
45:06 Ducks Player of the Week: Troy Terry
48:47 Predictions for Upcoming Games
51:52 Trivia Time: Ducks CEO Challenge

Transcript

Gary (00:29)
Welcome back Kings and Ducks fans to Royally Quacked, where of course I'm royally and he's quacked.

Cody (00:40)
spoiled.

Gary (00:45)
How's it going, Cody?

Cody (00:48)
I'm doing good, how are you dad?

Gary (00:50)
Better, feeling better.

Cody (00:52)
That's good.

Well, this week was so far better than last week playing wise a little bit. A little bit. But...

Gary (01:05)
I don't know, it was up and down, just like it's been before.

Cody (01:08)
Yeah.

Yeah, so you wanna get into team news first? Alright, I'll go first. I know I talked about this last week, but it was official that Frank Vatrano and his wife Rebecca welcomed their second daughter into the world. Everyone say hi and welcome to the Ducks family to Presley Vatrano.

Gary (01:16)
Let's do team news.

Welcome!

Cody (01:39)
and then some good.

Gary (01:40)
How about a quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack for Presley?

Cody (01:43)
Quack, quack. And the next good news is, good news, John Gibson was on the ice in full pads at practice. And he's been out since September 25th, and this is according to the sporting tribune. So hopefully within the next week or two we may, or I think he may have even joined the Ducks on this current road trip they're in right now. So we'll see.

how that goes. Should be nice and should be fun. Hopefully to see him back. I don't know what's going to happen with the whole James Reimer situation, but you know, or maybe Gibson gets traded or we'll see what happens.

Gary (02:19)
Yeah, there you go.

I guess time will tell. Time will tell. So we're to head into Kings news. I want to start off with a positive because for some reason this season the Kings are on a roller coaster ride. It's either up or it's down. Then it's back up and then it's back down. But this is a very great positive. First round pick.

Cody (02:33)
Huh?

Thank you.

Yep, King's Nose.

Gary (02:59)
Liam Greentree is off to a hot start. He's played 10 games. He has seven goals and 18 assists for 25 points. Wow.

So I'm gonna say this is gonna be his last seams in engineers.

Cody (03:21)
you

Gary (03:22)
He's either going to be probably with Ontario or the Kings next year. Cause he seems to go down there and just dominate the young guys. So.

I don't know if it's going to be a progression where, you know, he has to go to the AHL for a season or two before he makes it up to the Kings. Or is he going to jump? You know, people do it. Connor McDavid did it and was pretty dang good at it right from the start. But man, you know, he's Connor McDavid. There isn't very many of those. Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, stuff like that. And it looks like.

Kuemper is a go tonight, possibly gonna be in the starting lineup against Utah. We're recording this Saturday just a little after lunchtime. So we won't have that game, obviously be able to tell you about it until next week. But we'll see if Kuemper goes tonight.

This is a newsflash missing in action. The King's penalty kill has been reported missing. So if you have any information, please contact Coach Hiller.

Cody (04:43)
So is there a BOLO out too and everything to find this missing penalty kill?

Gary (04:50)
I don't know. What I'm trying to figure out is I know they changed everything. Are we still just going through the...

Growing pains of that, is that what's happening? I'm not sure. The other Kings news is Kyle Burroughs is in the lineup again tonight. He's been out. Andreas Englund has been playing a lot, but Burroughs is in the lineup tonight from the report from the Kings end insider that I saw today. So, and I do believe that game is 730 tonight, but let me just verify that.

No, gosh, it's at one o'clock. The game's at one o'clock today. We gotta get this done.

Cody (05:39)
Yeah, it and...

Alright, on to the league news. Just fast forward.

Gary (05:46)
Hahaha!

For some reason I thought it was a night game tonight. I am totally mistaken and I apologize in advance Well, not not in advance right here right now So let's go to league news the Knights have signed defenseman Shea Theodore to a seven-year extension worth seven point four to five million AAV or just a shade under 52 million Also noted

Shea Theodore is probably...

Why duck fans cry.

Cody (06:27)
hate to say it but your truth is in me. Vatanen.

Gary (06:29)
I mean they got him so they didn't take

I thought it was stupid then. And it's still stupid.

Cody (06:39)
Dad, you're giving me severe PTSD right now, so let's move on please.

Gary (06:43)
Sorry, I just had to throw that in there because it pissed me off. That pissed me off. It was like a giveaway. Well, hey, yeah, they're in our division. He has been damaging everybody in the Pacific division ever since then. So we all have a right to be mad. I know you should be extra mad.

Cody (06:52)
That pissed you off? That pissed you off, sir?

Yeah, it's been only a whammy for you. It's only been a whammy, it's been a double whammy for us Ducks fans, alright?

Gary (07:13)
Well, this is a podcast about both teams.

Cody (07:18)
Yeah, but you're not the one that gave him say theodore

Gary (07:23)
Yeah, because I'm not that dumb.

Cody (07:25)
Yeah, Bob Murray. Anyways, let's move on before I start getting really mad here. The Rangers have s- uuuuhhhh. The Rangers have signed forward Alexis Lafaniere to a seven-year extension worth 7.45 million AAV and just over 52 million per- or not per year, that'd be crazy. 52 million overall.

Gary (07:33)
Ooh, I got your ire up. That's good.

It's not Ohtani. The Panthers have signed head coach Paul Maurice to a multi-year contract extension. I'm assuming we don't have term or amount yet.

Cody (07:54)
Yeah, that's still not enough to be a

well deserved. I haven't seen anything. I haven't seen that or anything, but I would say I don't think it matters. It's well deserved for him.

And then next good news. The blues have signed forward Jake neighbors to a two year extension worth 3.75 million A. V. In 7.5 million overall.

Gary (08:31)
Like a good neighbor. we can't do a commercial for them. They're not supporting the podcast yet. The Rangers. Yeah, this is for you, Eric. Have sent down fan favorite Matt Rempe, the Rempire down to the AHL, Harford.

Cody (08:41)
yet.

This is for you, Eric Rodriguez.

Gary (08:59)
I'm sure that's not going to be long. I'm sure that's not going to be long. but sorry, Eric, but maybe he can get more playing time and fix whatever they need him to fix down there. So.

Cody (09:02)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Gary (09:18)
So now we're gonna go into games.

Cody (09:18)
Alright, alright, let's get, yeah let's get this one over with please.

Gary (09:27)
Well, game one, obviously for both of us, was, as you remember from last week, I predicted a 4-2 Kings victory. And Cody predicted a 3-2 Ducks victory.

Cody (09:28)
Mmm.

So I don't recall any of this. believe it was my evil twin Jodie that just came on the podcast last week and just took over and made, I'm just kidding.

Gary (09:58)
Fans, there is no Jody. Cody's been blaming Jody for 32 years.

Cody (10:05)
I wouldn't say 32 years. No.

Gary (10:06)
It's his imaginary friend. We're going to seek counseling for him as soon as the podcast is over.

Cody (10:14)
No, because for the least the last 25 years I've been blaming Tim.

Gary (10:19)
Ha

Well, yeah, you've you've blamed your little brother for many of things. anyways, it was a not a 4 - 2 victory. They did actually better than I predicted. They won four to one, but it was a good game. It was a good game. Highly contested. It was highly contested. But yet it. Kings prevailed that there are, I believe, two empty netters, right?

Cody (10:27)
Yeah.

and

until the third period.

Yet only two empty netters.

Gary (10:54)
Was one the bank shot for Mikey Anderson? Or was that a different game? The bank, yeah, there's not just a bank shot in basketball. Royally quack fans. Mikey Anderson has created the bank shot in hockey.

Cody (10:59)
Yeah, that was the bank shot.

yeah.

Gary (11:15)
A bank shot in hockey is, hey, I'm going to get it out of here so they can't score. And somehow it luckily goes into the net. But hey, a goal is a goal, you know, no matter how it goes in.

Cody (11:24)
He didn't even know that he scored it.

Gary (11:30)
Why I just said what I said. He was just getting it out of the zone.

Cody (11:35)
yeah, yeah. But I mean it was just a perfectly placed bank shot to get it out.

But I mean, I know we'll both go over this, but like the shots on goal, it was great for, I want to say the first two periods. mean, the Ducks out shot the Kings 6-5 in the first. then the Kings did have more shots, but I mean, it was still a pretty even.

game at that time, Dosol was just keeping us really in it. You guys had 13 shots in the second and we had four. And then the last period is where it just all went to hell. it was, you guys had, I believe 16 shots on goal and had four goals and we had one goal on four shots on goal. We only had 14 shots on goal.

Gary (12:44)
Yeah, well, you know, when the Kings defense is playing like it's supposed to, that's what the results should be. Boy, but I have to agree. I mean, the first two periods were highly competitive.

Dostal all was incredible.

Cody (13:06)
Yeah.

Gary (13:08)
So, but still it ended up being a four win. I'll be honest with you fans, mean, I don't care what your fan of the Kings or the Ducks. The Kings should beat the Ducks most nights. They just should. It's not the Ducks time yet. They're getting there. And I think all you Duck fans should be patient because they've got a very exciting group of young talent.

that in the future it's gonna be where it's for like in the teens after the Kings won the couple cups. Who was the better team?

Cody (13:38)
Yeah

the Ducks were the better team back then.

Gary (13:56)
Yeah, they were winning Pacific Division titles. The Kings were making, I think they only made the playoffs a few times, what, a few times after 17, maybe one or two times after 17 for a while.

Cody (14:00)
every year.

I think you guys lost two years and then had like that small little rebuild or retool.

Gary (14:21)
So, stars of the game. You wanna go over stars again or you wanna say how the scoring happened?

Cody (14:30)
Let's go over the scoring how the scoring how the how the scoring happened I'll let you go over the first two

Gary (14:42)
me just get to that.

Cody (14:45)
Well while you're doing that, so I'm sorry I'm gonna correct myself. There's 18 shots on goal for the Kings in the third period. So the shots on goal were 36 to 14 in favor of the Kings. Faceoff percentage was 62.3 % for the Kings and only 37.7. That's where the Ducks really need to get better right there because when you're already

struggling as a team overall and you're not even starting off with a puck that just makes things harder. Both teams there was no power play goals pretty almost pretty even on penalty minutes the Kings just took one extra penalty but this was one of the games where I was really starting to get annoyed with the Ducks power play.

it and i know that the kings i mean even you were saying in the beginning where the hell's the king's mount to kill and yet you're saying you can't find it and the Ducks still can't get past it

You we had 14 shots on goal. think we only had like one or two shots on goal. Or I want to say in the three power plays, you should be getting probably two or three like scoring chances per power play, not one shot on goal in three power plays. You know, you should be, you should be averaging like

Gary (15:52)
Well, you know what?

Sure, that's that.

Cody (16:15)
maybe four or five usually like shots like or more I mean I was or two to three shots on goal during a power play and they should be good scoring chances too and you're only getting one shot in three power plays

Gary (16:27)
edge.

Yeah, so fans, if you didn't now.

We're not just talking about shots, but shots on goal. There's two different things because most teams are shooting, but if it doesn't cause the goalkeeper to make a save, even if it hits a post, that is not a shot on goal. That's a shot, but not a shot on goal. So what Cody's saying is they're lucky to get one sometimes and none in a lot of categories. like in this game,

You know, the Kings penalty kill was pretty good, but it's like, where's Waldo? You know, there's Waldo. And then, know, the next game it's like, we can't find Waldo and, Ottawa Senator score four goals. And then the Toronto blue, blue Jays, Maple Leafs score two goals in the next game. And how many did Vegas score the other day? I just kind of upset that card.

didn't I? Anyways, so starting the scoring in the third period, Adrian Kempbe started the scoring with his third goal assisted by Kopitar and Anderson.

Cody (17:40)
Of course.

Gary (17:48)
And then Alex Laferriere scored his fourth goal unassisted.

Cody (17:55)
That goal piss me off.

Gary (17:57)
Then it, I mean, do want me to continue? Yeah.

Cody (17:59)
Yeah, no keep going. yeah my turn. Yeah. Yeah, but with that Laferriere goal that was Just a straight easy goal for Laferriere because Lacombe just literally put it on a platter for Laferriere to Go in and have a one-on-one against Dostall. I Mean, I know it's a play that these defensemen make every game But before you make that kind of pass double check

Cause he looked and then he was like, there's I got the puck. And then he was going to put across ice for, I want to say Fowler. I want to say he was with that game. I can't remember at the top of my head. and instead of double checking to make sure, yeah, he's still open. There's nobody around me. I'll make the pass. Nope. He made the pass, didn't look and Laferriere intercepted it and took it in for an easy score right there in the defensive zone. But.

Ryan Strome scored the lone goal for the Ducks this game with assists from Troy Terry and Frank Vatrano. This was just a great play all around between Terry Vatrano and Strome. So what happened was Vatrano got the pass on the right wing.

shoved it across the ice to Terry. Terry found Strome right in front of the net and Strome just tipped it right in. It was just a beautiful play. I don't know where that was the rest of the game but I feel like that was just like our one great play and then that was it. So at least there was no shout out so I'm happy about that but

And this has been definitely the best line for the Ducks, the Strome Terry Vatrano line. feel like other than the fourth line with Lundestrom, Leason, and McGinn, I would say this is the best offensive line right now. And honestly, before the season started, I would have told you this was probably the line I wasn't looking forward to the most. Because if you look at the other lines, you kind of get it.

Gary (20:14)
Yeah.

Cody (20:14)
So, but yeah, so that was the lone goal for the Ducks in this game.

Gary (20:21)
Well, let's go on to the empty netters. Kevin Fiala from Danault and Gavrikov at the 1853 mark. And then 31 seconds later, Mikey Anderson. I'm calling a bank. And it went in at the 1924 mark. And that was the final. Kings winning four to one.

Cody (20:49)
I want to protest on that last goal because Mikey Anderson did not call bank shot before he made this shot so it should not count. No he didn't. That doesn't count.

Gary (20:57)
He thought it though.

So three stars of the game, this is picked by the media by the way, not us. Third star of the game, Anze Kopitar, he had an assist.

Second player of the game. Lukas. You want to do it?

Cody (21:18)
Yeah. yeah. You took a pause. just making sure.

Gary (21:27)
I was pausing for you, but you didn't say anything. So I go, I'll step up.

Cody (21:34)
Sorry, my bad. Yeah, Lukas Dostal was the second star of the game with a goals against average of 2.02 and a safe percentage of 941.

Gary (21:48)
He loses a game and it's 941. That's he's he's exceptional. And the first star of the game Adrian Kempe with the obviously the game. Well, it the game winning goal though. Laferriere's have been the game winning goal.

Cody (21:51)
Yeah.

yeah.

Gary (22:09)
Or unless you call the goal that put you in the lead and you never give it up. I'm not sure how they do that. So.

Cody (22:14)
I think it's technically the Laferriere goal.

would be the.

Gary (22:22)
I think so too. That's what I do believe. And that was game one. So Cody eats crow. And Gary's not just royal, he's got an extra robe and his scepter is now a little bit larger and it's pure gold.

Cody (22:29)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I had other notes, where is it? Alright, I know I had other notes for this other game, but... We'll talk about the other Ducks game right now. In this game, the Ducks played against the sharks in Anaheim. This was just definitely a lot better looking game than the last three or four have been for the Ducks.

This game was on Tuesday, on October 22nd. The Ducks hosted the San Jose Sharks and the Ducks won this game 3-1. The shots on goal in this game were 40 for the Ducks. Wow, that's a shocker because we couldn't even get... I think we had more combined in this one game than we did the last two games combined. So that's great. And then the Sharks had 28 shots on goal.

Troy Terry is duck god right now. He broke the streak. We don't have to worry about if we were never going to score this power play ever again. Troy Terry finally breaks through and scores on the power play. Thank Lord, because if this didn't happen.

there definitely would have been a what the duck segment on this podcast. I was about ready to go off. But Troy Terry finally got it started with his fourth of the season with a sis from Lacombe and Gauthier, but to be honest, it was all Troy Terry on this one. He was literally just.

all by himself, no one else around him, he literally took on four Sharks players and scored this goal. I was just so happy that we finally broke through and as what Brian and Hayward were saying, sometimes it's just when it comes to something like this, it's like a ketchup bottle. Sometimes you gotta just keep hitting it, hitting it, and when you finally get ketchup out, a lot of it comes out.

But to start this game Cronin finally makes some line changes Lundestrom moves up and plays with Zegras and Killorn McTavish centers the fourth line with Johnston and McGinn So there was definitely some movement in this in this game They also had Fabbri on the top line with Carlsson and Gauthier

So like I said, I'm I like when you make some movement like that because you get on I know sometimes they want you to be like hey Let's just keep going. It's looking good. It's just not producing But nothing was looking good and I don't think Killorn is the right fit anymore for the Carlsson Gauthier line Killorn just look god-awful so far I know even though he i'm gonna mention him later for scoring spoiler alert, but like I said

Finally, the Ducks score on the power play. Terry takes on four Sharks by himself to take a 1-0 lead. And that was in the second period. The Ducks had a few great scoring chances halfway through the second period. They kept the puck in the Shark Zone. I want to say they had it in it for like two or three minutes. They were just getting to every loose puck, getting good shots on goal, getting good...

scoring chances they were they kept in the zone so well they were even able to make changes to their lines while they sought possession in the offensive zone so that's something that's good to see but the only thing is they just couldn't convert it into a goal that's the only thing I wouldn't really want the Ducks to change

Olen Zellweger makes probably one of the best passes i've seen in a while fantastic long pass to McTavish And he created a two-on-one for McTavish and McGinn And McTavish waited for like the perfect moment to make this pass and he made a great perfect pass Right over McGinn. only thing was mckenzie blackwood made a better save on the play

That would have made it a two nothing game, but like I said, that was just like I said, that's good to see. Zellweger looking up, making a great long pass, making a smart play. McTavish finally looked like he was comfortable doing everything. Because he's been struggling this season a lot too.

The second period was probably the best offensive period the Ducks have had so far this season. If only we can have periods like this and against better teams. And I would like to see it against better teams and not just against the Sharks.

But the last bit of note I have for this I'll save for later. Michael Grandlund scored the lone goal for the Sharks on a power play goal in the third period with assists from William Eklund and Thompson. And then sure enough like I said told you before Brian Hayward says sometimes a power play is like a ketchup bottle you just kind of keep going at it going at it and sure enough

You'll get something out of it and look what happened. Another power play goal. This one from Leo Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier and McTavish with assist on those ones to make it a 2-1 game. So Leo Carlsson, spoiler, gets the game winning goal this game. And then late in the third period, Alex Killorn scores an empty netter to make it 3-1 with an assist from Isaac Lundestrom.

So like I said, the one thing I would need to tell the Ducks about their power play is, and even sometimes their offensive zone time, the Ducks need to get away from using the wraparound passes along the boards. Honestly, it's one, it's getting too predictable, and two, it makes it harder for players to control the puck off the board. Because sometimes if they're on their...

Sometimes they gotta get it with their backhand and sometimes it's harder for them to control and it's just getting Way too predictable at this point So the like I said Ducks need to work on The their face-offs too they lost this game to the Sharks and the face-off percentage at fifty four point nine. I'll say pretty much fifty five forty five pretty much

All I know is I think Alex Wennberg only lost like one face-off from what I remember in this game. And the Ducks were 2 for 6 on the powerplay. Like I said, I'm glad we finally scored on the powerplay. It only took us a million tries. But I'm glad we finally got to it. We got out hit. We had 25 blocked shots. 25 giveaways and no takeaways. And the three stars of this game were...

Cutter Gauthier was the third star with two assists with two points. Obviously, Lukas Dostal again, number two star, only give up one goal, had a save % of 964. And the number one player that's in, and probably I'll probably mention him again later, is Troy Terry was the number one star, one goal, one point.

But he just looked good all the way around in this game. So that's it for this game. Now we'll go into the Kings games.

Gary (31:00)
Well, since we've already done the one that needed to win so I could crow for a week, cockadoodledoo. Now we're going to go to the Vegas game and you want to talk going from a high to a low. This was a low. I mean, the Kings got dominated in this game. I mean, I'm not going to pull any punches. They looked bad. I mean,

Cody (31:06)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gary (31:30)
They were down one, two, three, nothing in the first period.

One, two power plays in the first period. I'm not going to go too long about this because I've got something to say about stuff later in the podcast. But Warren Foegele in the second period finally broke through and got his first actual official Kings goal at the 1907 mark of the second period, making it a 3-1 game. That was about the best period the Kings played because then

In the third period, Vegas just clocked in three more goals and the final was 6-1. It was awful. Cody's talking about the faceoff.

Kings are not as good as last year. mean, the only one that's really holding his own is Danault. mean, even Kopitar is under 50 % and he's usually a top five. I mean, he is, I think 38. Isn't he 38, I think this year? So maybe he's losing a little bit of speed there. 37.

Cody (32:47)
37.

Gary (32:52)
But it was 64 % for Vegas, only 36 % for the Kings.

But we gave up, only had four penalty minutes, they scored on both of them. So they were two for two. And when we did out hit him, know.

Other than that, mean, we just, don't know, Vegas seems to have our number. I don't know how else to say it. it's, it was frustrating. I actually, stopped listening in the first period for a little bit because I was working and I wanted to focus on being safe driving. So I went away from the game and left it for a little bit.

I don't get what's going on with the Kings. I know there's been changes made, you know, from the 1-3-1 to the 1-2-2, from the penalty kill to the power play. I go, I don't know why we don't go back and do what we did successfully last year.

as best as we can and then just fix the things that needed to be fixed. But that's not what we've done. Anyways, but I'm going to move on. The three stars of the games were all Vegas. Samsonov gave up one goal, 971 save percentage. Stone had a goal and two assists. And Thomas Hurdle had two goals and two assists as the number one star of the game. So.

Nothing exciting to talk about this game Kingswise. It was awful. I mean personally awful But we'll we'll move to Thursday and Thursday it was different We started off with a bang Playing against a team who's not won a game You should be beating them

just go over the scoring real quick in the first period. Jordan Spence got his first, which was good news. Warren Foegele got his second and his third. So Foegele played really well. Even in the Vegas game, he's the only one that scored a goal. Assist on the Spence goal was Trevor Moore with only his first assist into its game. What set that was game seven.

Danault had his third assist. On Foegele's first goal, Laferriere had his second assist. And then on Foegele's third goal, Laferriere with his third assist and Brandt Clarke with his five. Bright point Brandt Clarke, bright point Laferriere. Second period, Michael Granlund. Two different, now again, power play power play.

two goals. Now it's three to two going into, I know. I'm sorry. Second period. He got his first power play goal. It was three, one going into the third, and then he scored his second and the Kings were able to not allow them to score another goal. the last half of the game, I thought San Jose dominated them or at least beat them in play. And this is a team that hadn't won a game.

So.

Cody (36:24)
and still doesn't have their top player, Celebrini Well, I mean, when he was on the team, their offense looked a lot better.

Gary (36:28)
Is he their top player?

Yeah, well, Granlund would be, he's probably their best player. Wennberg's up there, but Toffoli has had four goals and like seven points going into that game. So he's played well for them. So the three stars of this game, I'm sorry, I'm not going to give you a lot of details because I'll be honest with you, I'm

Cody (36:37)
I said better.

Yeah.

Toffoli

Gary (37:03)
I'm ready for a little bit later in the podcast of talking about things about the Kings. Spence was the third star with a goal. Laferriere was the second star with two assists. And Warren Foegele was the number one star with two goals.

Cody (37:06)
you

Gary (37:20)
And that's the Kings games up to the game that just probably just started.

Cody (37:28)
hasn't started yet I'm watching it

Gary (37:30)
I don't have it on because I don't want to be sidetracked by it. So.

Where do you want to go next?

Cody (37:40)
You can go on to your Royal Rant.

Gary (37:52)
Okay. All right, let's go with the Royal rant. go, okay, this is what I don't, my Royal rant is what the hell are we doing? Jeez, what are the hell are we doing? I mean, you we talk about Byfield being a center. Now we pulled him off and we, know, because things weren't working, we put him on the number one line.

Has he scored? He hasn't scored a goal since being on the number one line. I see Kopitar and Kempe doing stuff, but I haven't seen Byfield hardly doing anything up there. You know, and I go, understand that we're trying to, we want to win games and it has helped us win a game or two against lesser talent. But what are we doing? And then the penalty kill.

They like retooled that and I mean, it's either really good or it's really awful. Let's make up our minds. Let's go back to what we used to do. I mean, here, I know we put like Leferriere on the first power play, but last year we had Byfield on the first power play when there was no Arvidsson and it was thriving and Byfield was thriving in it. Now we put him on the second power play.

It's not working for him. We if he's the key, why don't we get him to where he can be the key? Let's push him to be the key of the of this team if he's our future. Let's let's push him to be our future I'm just so I'm pissed I Hope I hope it's coming across across the the airwaves here to you guys. I'm pissed about this stuff You know, I don't understand what we keep doing, you know, and then

We keep bouncing around with the defense. know they want to put Gavrikov and Anderson together and have them play on the penalty kill. And it's worked a little bit, but then it doesn't work because others aren't doing their jobs. And then you keep moving Brandt Clarke all over the place up there and he's the only guy getting us. Well, Anderson has played decent. know, Mikey Anderson has played decent. He's pretty steady, but you know, let's get Brandt Clarke.

I know he's on the number one power play, but maybe he should be up there with Anderson doing this stuff playing with the top line more so the top line maybe will score more so anyways Hiller let's get our act together Rob Blake. Let's get our act together. I mean, I know we're in third place in the Pacific Division, but We played some doormats here lately No offense Cody

You guys weren't really a doormat, but we played a doormat and barely beat them three to two. I mean, we did beat the Ducks four to one, but that was a much better game.

Cody (40:44)
It was really a two to one game.

Gary (40:46)
Yeah, I agree with that. my royal rant is, Kings, we need to get our act together. Let's start playing like we're royal. Let's get a move on. Hiller, make up your mind what you want to do. I mean, I don't get it. Fans, you get... I want to hear from you guys. Send us stuff about how you feel, what's going on. Are you in agreement with me or am I Looney Tunes?

Cody (41:14)
early change

Gary (41:16)
I figured you'd say that. And I know your mom's gonna hear this, your Looney Tunes. It's okay.

Cody (41:19)
That's all folks.

Gary (41:24)
And, you know, the Lord Duke has spoken. There. Huh. I wish you could see my face right now. I'm damn proud of myself.

Cody (41:32)
Do do do do.

Nah. Nah. No, just kidding.

Gary (41:38)
There, how's that Cody?

Well, you had no idea what I was gonna say, so...

Cody (41:45)
No, I had no idea. So...

Gary (41:49)
Player of the week?

Cody (41:51)
Player of the Week. Mine is, I think I went last week. I'll let you go since, I wanna see, I'm actually curious who yours is.

Gary (42:04)
Well, I struggled with this. I kind of have what I'm going to call three co-players of the week for the Kings.

Cody (42:15)
I need one, I can't fit three players on that little thing, so please help me out here, Dad.

Gary (42:22)
Okay, you want me to pick one? Okay, let me give you the three I was talking about first. Warren Foegele. Three goals.

He's got more goals than Byfield does. Number two, Alex Laferriere. I love this kid. He's doing everything. Sure, he makes a mistake defensively once in a while, but everything else, I mean, he's playing his heart out. Third,

Alex Turcotte. Alex Turcotte has been the best. You know what? My player of the week is Alex Turcotte, Cody. And I'm going tell you why. He's been the best center that the Kings have. Probably for the first part of this season, up until today's game.

And after all the injuries he's had, and this is one of the reasons I'm giving it to him, because it'll probably be Leferior or Foegele, but I'm going to give it to him all the injuries he had to go through to get here. And he's persevered through it and it's been a struggle.

You know, I'm when they picked him, I was really excited because, you know, he he partnered with, Kaliyev and Zegras to win the world juniors. And he, he was the one that made the line go. I mean, he, he turned Zegras, Zegras was a scoring machine because Zegras could go and just worry about scoring during that. So.

Cody (44:06)
Yeah.

Gary (44:07)
and I'm not putting Zegras down for any of it because he had to finish every one of those. Cause what do you score like nine goals? I think in that, tournament.

Cody (44:17)
I want to like nine goals and I want to say didn't he have like I forgot how many assists he had that

Gary (44:26)
I don't remember, so I don't want to butcher that. So my King of the Week would be Alex Turcotte Cody.

Cody (44:32)
Alright, who's your, who's your, your jester of the week?

Gary (44:37)
Jester of the week is Coach Hiller.

Cody (44:40)
Yeah

Gary (44:42)
Get your act together coach. I've been a fan of the Kings probably as long as he's been almost alive. Maybe longer.

So.

Yeah, Coach, Coach Hiller, get your act together. Let's get these boys playing. We have enough talent to win some games. Let's do it.

Cody (45:06)
Yeah. Alright. My Ducks player of the week. This is an easy one just as last week. I honestly could have just done Lukas Dostal again because the way he's playing he deserves every single bit of it. But this guy broke the power play streak. The scoreless streak. He's looked good. He's made great plays.

Is what the Ducks players they call Timmy. It's Troy Terry. He's my player of the week. I Didn't know that his nickname was Timmy until like a few months ago That's his nickname they call him Timmy I forgot why yeah, like yeah

Gary (45:48)
Timmy?

Like your brother, Timmy? Okay, just making sure I hear him that straight.

Cody (45:57)
And then I would say my lame duck of the week.

It's between like two people like Alex Kolarin is still up there. He just hasn't looked good. He's been slow He just looked he looks lost out there a lot and I would say the other one I mean he did look better in the last game But it's gonna be Mason McTavish. He just hasn't looked like himself yet You know and normally like I you know, normally up there is usually like camp Valor or

you know, even Ross Johnston has looked better out there and all he does is try to hit people. So Mason McTavish and Killorn, just, what they need to bring they're not providing yet. So maybe it's just me having higher expectations, but when we're paying someone 6.25 million a year and they're looking lost out there, not very good.

And then also with Mason McTavish being a third overall pick, he looked great to start last year. He looked like a heart candidate in the first 10, 15 games last year.

So like I said, those I would say Troy Terry is definitely my player of the week. And then my lame duck would be Kaloran and McTavish.

Gary (47:21)
Well, pretty sad when you got that kind of talent that's lame duck.

Cody (47:29)
Yeah, right.

Gary (47:32)
And you kept talking about Carlsson and you kept talking about Gauthier. And he kept not talking about Troy Terry and I kept going, what about Troy Terry? What about Troy Terry? I go, he had that injury field season last year after signing the big contract. I go, but the guy is talented and he's fun to watch play. I-

Cody (47:54)
Well, I think what didn't help him last year was when he was on the line with Carlsson. He I don't know if this is true or not, but I've heard from other sources like that. They've talked about is he was trying to help Carlsson get more comfortable playing an NHL game. So instead of like Troy Terry playing his game, building his stats, he was making sure Carlsson

was comfortable first. now you can see Carlsson is perfectly comfortable with the NHL so far. And now look what Troy Terry is doing. So Troy Terry is my player of the week. You want to get into predictions? All right. You want to do year two?

Gary (48:31)
Yeah. True.

Let's do it.

We're moving along a lot quicker than normal Cody, so it's kind of weird. But we didn't have as much content this week. am I going to do my predictions first?

Cody (48:49)
I know. I know.

Yeah.

You can do yours first.

Gary (49:03)
Okay, so on Tuesday, well, yeah, I know they're playing today. The next game is Tuesday the 29th at San Jose. And I have the Kings winning this game four to two.

Cody (49:23)
Okay.

Gary (49:24)
Then on Thursday, Halloween Eve, they're playing in Vegas again and I have them losing again, two to four, four to two to Vegas. They'll lose four to two to Vegas. So I have the Kings going one on one this week.

Cody (49:40)
Interesting.

So in mine, today, I mean, obviously I know they play the Rangers today, I already predicted that last week. Tomorrow, the Ducks will play in New Jersey, and I'm predicting they get a 3-2 win over the New Jersey Devils. Yep, you guys, you heard that right. I'm predicting the Ducks win 3-2.

Gary (50:05)
Going out on a limb again, are you?

Cody (50:08)
I don't know, I feel like they've just had New Jersey's number the last couple years. know, Mintyukov just, I think, I forgot, was, I think it was in New Jersey last year, or Mintyukov just got into Jack Hughes' head and everything and just, it took him off his game and then he had dosed all with that last minute shootout goal that for Toronto.

gave away and I said I feel like the Ducks can take this one three to two on Tuesday the Ducks are in in the Long Island planning against the New York Islanders and I'm predicting a overtime loss of four to three

And then on Thursday, on Halloween, the Ducks will be in Pittsburgh, and I'm predicting a 3-2 shootout win. You heard that. I'm predicting a shootout win. So we're not going to just go into overtime. We're going to go into a shootout, and Doe Stoll's going to save us. Unless Gibson's back, then I could see Gibson making his debut in Pittsburgh.

So that's my predictions.

The Ducks will come out with three wins. Or actually, no, sorry, two wins. They'll come back with a 2-1-1 record after this road trip right here.

So.

Gary (51:52)
Alright, so we're done with predictions. Do we have trivia this week?

Cody (51:56)
Was it my turn again?

Gary (51:57)
No, I could give it to you. This is going to be a tougher one, though. Are you ready?

Cody (52:00)
Okay.

Okay, I'm ready.

Gary (52:06)
who became CEO of the Anaheim Ducks in 2005.

Cody (52:16)
in 2005.

Gary (52:18)
and I'll give you options.

Cody (52:21)
Okay, multiple choice.

Gary (52:23)
Yes. A. Michael Shulman. B. Tim Ryan. C. Henry Samueli D. Susan Samueli

Cody (52:36)
Uhhh, you said CEO of the Anaheim Ducks.

Gary (52:39)
CEO.

Chief Executive Officer.

How big a duck fan are you? Because this isn't an easy one.

Cody (52:52)
I'm gonna say Susan Samueli

Gary (52:55)
No.

Cody (52:58)
Okay, then I would have to say... Is it Tim Ryan?

Gary (53:07)
0 for 2.

Cody (53:10)
Was it Henry Samueli?

Gary (53:13)
Well, you got one choice left. Wow. I didn't expect that. You picked everybody with the right answer.

Cody (53:21)
Uhhh... I...

That sounds about right.

Gary (53:31)
Michael Schulman was named CEO of the Anaheim Ducks in 2005.

Cody (53:40)
Man.

Gary (53:41)
This coming to you from the Quacky Boy Cody Spank.

Cody (53:46)
Honestly, my first, when you asked me that, don't know why my first choice was Mickey Mouse, to be honest.

Gary (53:54)
Okay

Cody (53:57)
And then his CFO was Goofy.

by the way, and Kuemper is starting right now. Yeah.

Gary (54:08)
did he start? Awesome. Okay. Excellent. So again, I take it we had no responses to be a co-host with me.

Cody (54:13)
So.

I did have one, but I'm talking to him and we're trying to schedule something. So I'm not gonna tell you who it is. It's gonna be surprise. So we did have one person respond. So just in case if someone else, you know, calls in or not calls in, but you know, messages me.

Gary (54:23)
Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Cody (54:49)
This guy says he has a big Ontario Reign fan for sure.

So, yep. He says he's kind of a little new to hockey, so he's been to more Ontario games than Kings games. Yeah, exactly. So.

Gary (55:05)
We can still talk, Aki. We can talk about the rain. You know, we can make them a bright point of that podcast. I have no problem with that. I just have fun doing this.

Cody (55:16)
I fun doing it too. But if anyone else is willing to save my dad from getting another Ducks guest on here, please message us on anything. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

Gary (55:19)
So that's good news.

royallyquacked@gmail.com.

Cody (55:38)
email us at honor right there royallyquacked@gmail.com. Like I said please leave a review and a rating on your favorite podcast platform we really appreciate it. If you do leave a review I will try to read on the podcast all I ask is please make it good. know we and plus we would love your feedback too to help make this podcast better for everyone.

Gary (56:06)
Absolutely. We would love your input on things that we might miss. Something you'd like us to talk about.

Cody (56:20)
Please send us questions too. It doesn't have to be

Gary (56:23)
Absolutely. We'd love some trivia questions that we both have to answer.

Cody (56:27)
Yeah, or just questions for about the Ducks, about the kings, food, or Star Wars, Marvel. I'm not into Harry Potter as much, but we can have a question about that, or just funny random questions. that too.

Gary (56:42)
You do that and your wife will be calling us.

Cody (56:48)
And she loves her Harry Potter. So, well, that's it. Ready to get out of here? All right. Well, guys, thank you again, and we'll see you guys next week on Royally Quack. And just remember.

Gary (56:50)
That's true.

I am.

Go Kings Go!

Cody (57:06)
And let's go Ducks. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.