Has it really been seven years since the last truly meaningful series between the Kings and Ducks?
It seems longer.
Remember? May of 2014 was when John Gibson emerged as the Ducks’ goalie of the future, having played just three regular-season games but thrust into the spotlight in the second round against the Kings and winning the first two (including a shutout in his playoff debut) to give the Ducks a 3-2 series lead. But the Kings won Game 6, 2-1, and Justin Williams burnished his “Mr. Game 7” credentials with a goal and an assist in a 6-2 L.A. victory at Honda Center that brought the Kings a step nearer to their second Stanley Cup in three years.
That was also the night when Teemu Selanne’s career ended, and players from both teams saluted the future Hall of Famer at game’s end by tapping their sticks on the ice, bitter rivalry be damned.
The goal now is to get back to those days of important games at the end of the season. In the meantime, the Kings and Ducks play the second of four back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings Wednesday night at Staples Center, with both organizations still angling to figure out exactly what they’ve got and where it fits going forward.
It said something that on each side before and after the Kings’ 4-1 victory on Monday night at Staples, some of the speculation involved who wasn’t dressed. Center Quinton Byfield, the 2020 draft’s No. 2 overall selection, is on the Kings’ taxi squad and presumably poised to make his NHL debut soon. Similarly, the Ducks added 2019 first-rounder Trevor Zegras to their taxi squad; he played 17 games with the Ducks this season but had been sent back down to the San Diego Gulls to work on refining his skills at center.
There’s an excellent chance we will see both as this season winds down, maybe even in this series.
“Anything’s possible,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said Monday night, coyly.
Kings coach Todd McLellan talked of Byfield having the opportunity to benefit from just being around the big club, particularly captain and No. 1 center Anze Kopitar, “and absorb it all … and then we’ll see as time goes on how and where he fits in.”
Byfield had eight goals and 20 points in 30 games with the Ontario Reign, getting hot after a shaky professional start. But from his comments after Tuesday’s practice, he still seems a little wide-eyed. He is only 18, you know.
“They’re unreal players,” he said via Zoom. “They’ve been in this league for a while for multiple reasons.
“Being on the ice with them, I think it was two times now, it’s just incredible to see how (Kopitar) plays, how he sees the little games, how he moves the puck, either his forehand or backhand. Wherever you give this guy the puck, he’s going to take it and make a play out of it. So, you know, he’s been unreal. Came in and talked to me a bit, showed me the ropes. So he’s a great leader as well.”
The young guys ought to already be well aware of the intensity of this neighborhood rivalry by the time they get to the big club. After all, that was one of the byproducts of the Kings and Ducks moving their AHL teams to California in 2015, the minor leaguers learning to dislike the guys they’d later be battling in the NHL. The Ontario and San Diego clubs have played 65 regular-season and 10 playoff games against each other since the AHL Pacific Division was established, and let’s just say the ice has been littered with gloves more than a few times.
Given that history, Monday night’s game was comparatively tame. Maybe it takes having a full house of fans in different colored jerseys snarling at each other to ramp up the emotions, although a limited number of people in the arena certainly beats an empty building. But there was only one small bit of pushing and shoving after a whistle, and even the Ducks’ Nic Deslauriers and the Kings’ Kurtis MacDermid, one-time roomies and now occasional combatants, seemed on their best behavior when both were on the ice.
Familiarity, as they say, breeds contempt. Trust me, these teams will be surlier as this series continues.
It can’t be solely about the future for the Kings, still on the fringes of the playoff race with 10 games to play, six points out with three teams to leapfrog. When McLellan was asked Monday if these games against Anaheim were a measuring stick, he said: “I think you disrespect Anaheim and you don’t have any self-respect if you look at it that way.”
But it’s reasonable to think that experience gained now will be far more important later on.
Jamie Drysdale, for example, scored the Ducks’ lone goal Monday night. Under normal circumstances, the 19-year-old, who was the No. 6 overall pick in 2020, would be getting another season in juniors. But with the Ontario Hockey League shut down he instead gets a graduate-level education in how to succeed as an NHL defenseman.
“It’s always a pleasure to play with Jamie,” veteran Cam Fowler said. “Any way I can help him, I try. He’s got a good feel for the game already at a really young age.”
Meanwhile, the Kings’ Mikey Anderson – a little further along on the development curve, as a 2017 fourth-rounder who turns 22 in May – talked of some different lessons. Hard ones, learned early in the season when the Kings blew leads, including one with two seconds left in regulation, and lost in overtime to Minnesota in their first two games of the season. Lost points really matter now.
“I think you can look back at the whole year and you see how important every night is,” he said. “There’s a bunch of young guys in here. We all got to take a look at that and realize even the start of the year, the first 10-15 games, they’re huge games. And you can’t take them lightly.
“We’ve had glimpses of being a really good team pretty much every game throughout the year. It’s just exciting to be a part of it and trying to help get back in the hunt.”
It’s been quite the dry spell lately, though it’s worth another reminder that SoCal has three Stanley Cups since a Canadian team last won one. Can we look forward to a resurgence soon, courtesy of the kids?
jalexander@scng.com
@Jim_Alexander on Twitter
