Did that Kings game really happen last night?

A few thoughts on last night's epic 6 to 5 collapse by the Kings in game three of their playoff series against the Sharks:

•I was sitting in the Kings attack twice end of the ice. And guess what? All six San Jose goal were scored in front of me -- five in the second period and the final one in overtime.

•The 4 - 0 Kings lead was a bit of a deception. The Kings picked up a couple of cheap goals early and San Jose's defense and goalie looked very s-h-a-k-y before settling down.

•A four goal lead in hockey is nothing like a four touchdown lead in football. Football possessions generally take time and smart teams with leads know how to employ the running game to take a lot of time off the clock. In hockey, it can take five seconds for a team to regain possession of the puck and score.

•A lot of people in my section were beyond disgust with the play of winger Dustin Penner, who they accused of tepid effort and poor puck management skills. That didn't show up so much in the media coverage.

•That was the loudest and most crowded Kings game I've seen in my three years of going to games. That said, I'm inclined to agree with Mercury News columnist Mark Purdy that Staples Center is generally a pretty quiet place for hockey games. A lot of the noise at Kings games, including last night, comes from music and videos cranked up to rock concert levels. I have no idea who the Kings are marketing to -- seemingly 16 year old boys. It's funny, because I don't see a lot of 16 year old boys in the stands. Mostly I see adult guys, including some who managed to find dates.

As I've said before, at some point the Kings organization will realize that the most exciting thing about a hockey game is...a hockey game and all that other crap is just nonsense.

--S.H.

A few random Monday notes on hockey and whatever

•Local NHL fans: it still looks possible the Kings and Ducks can come in fourth and fifth in the Western Conference and then play each other in the first round of the playoffs. If the Kings can somehow wrestle the Pacific Division title from the Sharks, then there's a chance they finish third and would play the Ducks if the Ducks finished seventh. Got all that?

•My lil' beer league team won 11 to 4 yesterday against a team that was missing some guys. In our first 10 games as a team last year -- when most of us were in our first-ever hockey league -- we scored only 15 goals. So to see 11 in a game was strange. And kind of nice.

•I actually heard an NPR reporter today report that it usually frightens passengers when the skin of an airplane rips off in mid-flight. Really? You think?

•I'm looking forward to going to bed tonight with Tina Fey. I've just got to figure out which socks to wear.*

--S.H.

*Fey's new book "Bossypants" comes out tonight. I plan to go to stick time, then come home and watch Kings-Sharks (after Domesticated Partner watches her fill of HGTV) and then hitting the sack with Tina and a glass of whiskey. Sounds almost perfect.

Who do you want Kings to play in the playoffs?

Thanks to the NHL's liberal rules that allow a majority of the team's leagues into the playoffs, the Los Angeles Kings are almost certainly going to the post-season barring a catastrophic collapse in the next two weeks.

But how good are the Kings?

Throughout the season I've been trying to keep an eye on the transparent standings published occasionally by the New York Times. The transparent standings are a bit old-school, as they separate how a team performs in regulation from how it does in overtime.

The NHL standings, on the other hand, only show wins-losses-overtime losses. The standings do not show how many wins were the result of winning the skills competition at the end of overtime -- i.e. the shootout.

In the transparent standings, as of Friday morning, the Kings have a record of 30-25-18 in regulation, meaning they win 41% of their games in regulation. But they've excelled in overtime, going 12-6, including a 9-5 record in the shootout.

One team the Kings should be scared of is the Vancouver Canucks. They are 40-25-10 in regulation time for a win percentage of 53% in regulation. The Canucks are 6-4 in overtime as of Tuesday and 3-3 in the shootout. But who cares about the pedestrian OT stats? More often than not, the Canucks only need 60 minutes to put teams away.

Winter Classic should come to the Sierra or the Rockies

With the most recent Winter Classic, held in Fenway Park in Boston, being widely judged a success, a lot of attention is now turning where to hold future outdoor NHL games. A fun article on the Fox website proposes, among other ideas, a game between the Ducks and Kings at the L.A. Coliseum.

And I came across a Tweet proposing a game on the frozen ice of the national mall in Washington D.C. Can't you just imagine an errant slapshot clanging off the head of the Abe Lincoln statue?

Well, here's my brilliant idea: Instead of putting the game in another massive stadium in the Eastern U.S., move it to a truly scenic setting. And there are few more spectacular places than the Sierra Nevada or the Rocky Mountains.

The NHL could, for example, build a temporary rink with bleachers in the giant parking lot at Squaw Valley, scene of the 1960 Winter games -- where, by the way, the U.S. team beat the Soviet Union in the first version of the Miracle on Ice. Blyth Arena, where that game was held, was torn down in the early 1980s after the roof collapsed due to heavy snowfall (above is the view of the 1960 Olympic facilities, as seen from Squaw's slopes).

A game at Squaw could pit the perpertual contender San Jose Sharks versus pretty much anyone and be a treat to watch.

Doughty makes Canadian Olympic team

The big hockey news of the day was the naming of the Canadian men's hockey team that will be trying to bring home the gold medal for the home squad in Vancouver in February. And, to boot, it's a great day for local hockey -- Kings defenseman Drew Doughty made the cut, as did a trio from the Anaheim Ducks -- defenseman Scott Niedermayer and forwards Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry.

Here's the full roster. The Sharks also placed four players: forwards Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton and defenseman Dan Boyle.

Sadly, the Kings' Ryan Smyth didn't make the team -- likely because he's coming off an injury that forced him to miss more than a month of play. 

Former Ducks player and current Flyer Chris Pronger got the nod and a goalie that both the Ducks and Kings know well -- the Canucks' Roberto Luongo -- will get to mind the net on his home ice in Vancouver. In other words, the West Coast will be well represented on Team Canada.

The U.S. team will be named during the Winter Classic on Friday in Boston. Three members of the Kings are said to be under consideration: foward and team captain Dustin Brown, defenseman Jack Johnson and goalie Jonathan Quick. Brown, by the way, his Doughty's teammate on the road.

Good coverage of the Doughty selection can be found at LAKingsInsider. 

My completely uninformed opinion about this: I thought Doughty played better last year than this season. There's no doubt he is very skilled, but he also seems badly out of position at times. About this, I know a little something: I'm often several country miles out of position.

In any event, all of this extremely excites Puck Boy. As cynical as we all sometimes can be about politics and such, there's still something to be said about playing for your country and the Olympic hockey tournament is the game's best chance to make a case for itself to millions of people around the world. And, if it ignites more interest in hockey locally, all the better.

--Steve Hymon