The ceremony at the Staples Center on Wednesday night began in a familiar way, with a green strobe show and little Drew Doughty telling the camera he was going to be a hockey player when he grows up. The epic postseason was relived in video montages, chills and emotions brought back. The Cup descended from the scoreboard and the banner ascended into the rafters.
And then, as if a switch flipped, the Los Angeles Kings ...
Well, they were shut out. To make matters a little worse, they were shut out by the San Jose Sharks, the very team they steamrolled in historic fashion on their way to that banner. The Sharks might have a new look but continue to be the same old nemisis, and in the 2014-15 season opener, they played precision hockey in a 4-0 win over the defending Stanley Cup champion Kings.
"We just didn't play well," Kings captain Dustin Brown said. "I think we're disappointed in the two points that we lost. That's ultimately what it comes down to."
It marked the first time the Kings were shut out in their home opener since 1997. A sellout crowd of 18,514 was on hand for all of the highs and lows. They quickly were deflated watching a team that looked more like the one that played in Game 1 of the playoffs instead of Game 24.
The breakdown occurred in the second period when the Sharks scored two goals in just 14 seconds to go up 4-0. But it began much earlier with sloppy puck movement.
"We weren't very sharp moving the puck," Brown said. "Coming in and out of our zone we struggled moving it one, quickly, and two, tape-to-tape. As a result, it makes it really hard to get up the ice. You just get stuck playing more d-zone than offensive zone."
There were a few nice plays on the penalty kill, but there wasn't much else. Battles were lost in the faceoff circle and especially in the offensive zone. The Kings went 0 for 5 on the power play and, even though they outshot the Sharks 34-30, Antti Niemi was a stalwart while Jonathan Quick was pulled.
"I wasn't good enough," Quick said. "They were better than we were; they got the win. I don't think it had anything to do with all of that stuff we had to do before. They were the better team."
Commissioner Gary Bettman joked before the game that the team that raises the banner every season has a tendency to come out flat. But the Kings insisted that there was no celebratory hangover.
"That's an excuse," defenseman Alec Martinez said.
"There's worse problems to have," Brown said. "One of those things that kind of goes with the territory, but I don't think that's why we were sloppy. We were sloppy because we didn't prepare properly."
However, their head coach didn't think it was the preparation. Darryl Sutter felt that on a night when the sentiment was overwhelmingly positive and the adrenaline should have been running high, the team was devoid of some of that excitement.
"Our emotional level tonight, for whatever reason -- and that (ceremony) was part of our emotions -- we had nothing," he said.
Kings could get used to raising championship banners
It was back to the regular-season business as usual, the bruising, low-scoring style of play that is vastly different from the Kings hockey typically seen in the playoffs. This one might have been flatter than others, but with nearly the same roster intact, there's no reason to think that this was a precursor of what's to come.
There are 81 games left, and the team is anxious to put the seemingly endless celebration behind them and move on to a new season.
"You're just kind of tired of it," Quick said. "You just want to play hockey."
