Predictions ahead of the National Hockey League 2011 Play-offs (Part 2)
The destiny of the Los Angeles Kings of winning or losing will be in the hands of their goalkeeper, Jonathan Quick
Jonathan Quick has always been an important part of the Los Angeles Kings and no matter with the rest of the teams performs or not, each time the Kings go out on ice he is expected to do well.
This is all due to the reputation he has build for himself after some superb shows that he has displayed during the past few seasons.
Last season in the series against the Vancouver Canucks there were a couple of goals that Quick would like to review as he had a very good chance of saving them.
He clearly looked one of the most under pressure players in the Kings to come up with extraordinary performances which resulted in him coming up with the occasional hick ups that ended with the Canucks winning the series after six games.
However, he would not like to repeat what happened during the course of last season and come up with a better performance.
After the play-offs his performance was said to be disappointing but with the display in goal that he has come up with during the current regular season certainly shows that he is in good shape.
Kings have been going up and down the West during the regular season which saw them touching the top at one time and then fighting for the final few spots in the play-offs in the end.
Kings have been greatly hurt by injuries up front and then at the back which has been the main reason in the decline of their form.
Kings were looking in good shape right before the play-offs as Anze Kopitar who is a very important asset of the Kings was injured (ankle injury) on the last day of the regular season.
This puts the Kings in a very difficult position ahead of the play-offs as he was the main offensive weapon of the Kings. Goals will be less for the Kings which means that their defence has to be even better.
When you talk about defence of the Kings then the first person you look to is Jonathan Quick. This will certainly put him under a lot of pressure and let’s hope that he doesn’t collapse under this as the destiny of the Kings hovers around him.
Pekka Rinne will be the goal keeper to watch out in the play-offs
The Nashville Predators always develop very strong goal keepers and defensive lines. This year it is no different as Pekka Rinne has emerged as one of the top goal keepers in the league during the course of the regular season.
He has been absolutely brilliant and bagged the most impressive season of his career that saw him finishing in the top five goal keepers with the most saves percentage and also the least goals against percentage.
Though he hasn’t been around in the Predators for much but whatever time he has spent with them, he has become a very important part of the team.
The only questions is that whether or not the Predators are able to score goals and show that they are strong on the offence as well since the defence is expected to do good with Rinne expected to outplay every other competitor.
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