Willes bored with Canucks now thinks end of times for Kings

It feels like a lifetime ago, but when the Canucks met the L.A. Kings two years ago in the first round of the playoffs, it seemed like the first of many bloody battles between the two teams.

The Canucks, to that point at least, were a year further along in their development and would outlast the Kings in a rollicking six-game series that was memorable for several reasons.

The two teams produced, sigh, 43 goals, including 10 power-play goals by the Kings. The Kings actually held a 2-1 series lead and 3-2 edge heading into the third period of Game 4 when the Sedins and Mikael Samuelsson turned things around.  More…

Shacks’ Take: Here’s what I love about Ed, the Canucks start playing well, hard to find any negatives here, but don’t fret people, there’s always the opposition to find the impending doom.

Doughty and the Kings are doomed with little
future, according to Ed.  Tough when you're all
of 22.

Much of the article is factual but as always it looks at the glass half empty perspective.  Like most Willes articles, he considers only the immediate and looks no further than 15 minutes into the future.  Again that’s the easy way to view things if you want to write several articles a week but since life continues past the next few moments the future should be considered when you write these ‘sky is falling’ type articles. 

Los Angeles’ core group of Doughty, Kopitar, Brown, Richards, Carter & Quick are all 27 or under. Kopitar and Doughty are 24 and 22 respectively.  They are all just reaching their peaks and their stars still aren’t there yet.  This group has plenty of time to find their groove and contend for years.

In fact, the Kings just came off a six game winning streak and you can bet with their goaltending and defense, if they sneak into one of the last few available playoff spots, they have the potential to give their playoff opponent a lot of trouble. 

Are they happy about the way this season has gone?  I doubt it but that doesn’t mean this team’s run is over, it just might need some minor tweaking.