Quick-tending!

After being roughed up in the third period against the Chicago Blackhawks, and having an average game a few days before against Nashville, Coach Murray gave Quick the night off and let Ersberg, play his second game of the year against the worst team in the league. The Carolina Hurricanes are in the midst of a 12 game losing skid, so it seemed like perfect timing to give Quick a night off. The Kings snapped their 2 game losing streak with a 5-2 victory. Ersberg made 22 saves on the night but was shaky as well, likley from the lack of playing time.

Something has to give here in L.A. Quick is a good goalie, but he can not handle a heavy load the way Kipper or Broduer do. Quick would be a much better goalie if he only played between 50 and 60 games. In my opinion Ersberg isn’t going to get 20 games and definitely not 30. If L.A. truly wants to make it to the playoffs they need to fix there backup goalie situation.

I would start by giving Bernier a shot; He has played great in Manchester and is still considered the future in goal for the Kings. Bring him up and see how he fairs and if after 5 or 6 starts Bernier needs more time send him back to Manchester. Also I would make a move to acquire Marty Biron or Antero Niittymaki. If by the time the Kings make a decision and choose not to go with Bernier than maybe Kari Lehtonen is ready to return and help out. I had said earlier that acquiring Harding, Halak, and or Schneider was a waste of time, and to a point I am sticking to it, but perhaps picking up Halak, or Harding wouldn’t be the end of the world either. They both can play more than the average backup so maybe they could help out so that if nothing else Quick could have a break every once and a while.

To me the fact is a solid backup goalie will likely be the biggest hurdle L.A. faces in getting back in to the playoffs. Having good goaltending game in game out is what this Kings need. Their defense is solid and as we saw last night Randy Jones seem to do just fine in his first game of the season scoring the game winning goal on the powerplay, and adding an assist to go along with it. They also have Harrold, Martinez, Voinov, and Hickey ready to step in so they have lots of depth there. The offence is going to be fine as well. The key is really whether or not the goaltending can hold up.