Ducks update: Slumping and sleepless in Anaheim

One win in the last 11 games is not the ideal way to get a good night's sleep.

Just ask Ducks Coach Randy Carlyle.

"There’s a buzzer that goes off in my brain somewhere around 3 in the morning and it’s always about what’s going on at work and what’s going on with the hockey club," he said after practice Tuesday at Honda Center. "Then there’s a toss and turn for sometimes two hours, sometimes it’s three hours and sometimes it’s one hour.

"And then you want to sleep till 10 because you’re tired and you’ve just gotten back to sleep at 5. Those are the things that happen. Part of the stress and the pressure that comes with not having the success you feel you’re capable of."

The Ducks have been in a deep and prolonged slump. They have not been a consistent team since getting off to a 4-1 start, and the season just hit the one-quarter mark. Forwards Corey Perry and Ryan Getzlaf are a combined minus-18, and the bottom six forwards have lacked scoring punch.

Dustin Penner: King of Pain

Cursed? Snake-bit?

Kings left wing Dustin Penner used another word to describe this injury-riddled stretch, one consisting of bad luck and bad timing.

Annoy.

Penner was starting to find a small measure of consistency when he took a shot off his hand in the third period against the Vancouver Canucks on Nov. 10, and it landed him on injured reserve. He will travel with the Kings on their short trip to St. Louis and Dallas this week but won’t be returning to the lineup imminently.

“That one caught me square in the knuckles -- that was kind of a freak thing,” Penner said after practice on Monday in El Segundo. “After eight years, I guess I was owed one from standing in front of the net.”

The pain and inflammation from the break has gone down and Penner showed a much better range of motion, saying he has not had any setbacks.

“He’s going to continue doing the conditioning part of it, just get on the ice and do the skating, but he’s not going to play,” Kings Coach Terry Murray said.

Sidney Crosby returning to action Monday

The long-awaited moment finally came on Sunday afternoon: Penguins center Sidney Crosby will play against the Islanders on Monday night in Pittsburgh, according to a team announcement.

Crosby Watch, thankfully, has ended.

A concussion has kept Crosby (pictured above) out of game action since Jan. 5 with concussion-like symptoms, and there have been months of speculation about the future of player who is the face of the NHL. He was finally cleared for contact in practice situations on Oct. 13.

You might say the Islanders are probably the ideal opening opponent for Crosby. In 33 career games, he has scored 18 goals and 62 points against them.

After the Islanders game, the Penguins play host to St. Louis on Wednesday and Ottawa on Friday before traveling to Montreal on Saturday.

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Photo credit: Gene J. Puskar / Associated Press

Nashville's Craig Smith somehow misses an empty net

Some goals come easy, some don't.

Usually empty-net goals are the easy ones, but don't tell that to Nashville Predators center Craig Smith.

In the closing minutes of the Predators' 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday, Smith somehow shot the puck over the glass while skating in front of a wide-open net.

As you can tell, he was a little embarrassed by the missed opportunity, but at least he was on home ice, where the Nashville fans always have their players' backs:

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Ducks go shopping: Claim Niklas Hagman off re-entry waivers

Struggling teams = changes.

Thus, the Ducks and Kings were in action Monday morning, looking for solutions to their current struggles. 

Anaheim made the bigger move, grabbing left wing Niklas Hagman of Calgary on re-entry waivers. The Ducks will pick up a prorated amount of Hagman's salary, about $1.1 million. For the Ducks, it's not a big gamble and could offer the vision of an all-Finn line: Hagman possibly playing with countrymen Teemu Selanne and Saku Koivu.

The Ducks, with two wins in their last 12 games, need help up front in a big way and the change of scenery could help Hagman, who seemed overwhelmed by pressure and expectations in Calgary after arriving there in the Dion Phaneuf trade.

He was off to a slow start this season with four points in eight games with the Flames, leading Calgary to assign him to its American Hockey League affiliate on Friday. Hagman, who turns 32 on Dec. 5, had 11 goals and 27 points in 71 games last season with Calgary.

“I met with Nik last Thursday, when we placed him on waivers, and told him we have been trying to trade him," said Flames GM Jay Feaster in a statement. "While some teams expressed interest, no one was willing to take on the contract. I advised Nik that upon clearing waivers we would place him on re-entry waivers and I gave him permission to speak with other teams."

Meanwhile, the Kings recalled forward Andrei Loktionov from the Ontario Reign of the ECHL. He had been sent to the Reign by Kings' minor-league affiliate in Manchester on Sunday but did not play any games for Ontario. He had a team-leading 14 points in 17 games for the Monarchs.

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Photo: Niklas Hagman. Credit: Ron Chenoy / US Presswire

Kings after deadline: Notes and quotes about 5-2 win over Wild

Kings Coach Terry Murray on his 1,000th game:

"It doesn't really feel any different, anything special. It's a game that was very important for us to win."

Murray had more to say about his first game as a head coach in the NHL, when he replaced his brother Bryan as Washington's coach in 1990.

"Everything. I remember everything," Murray said. "It was like it happened two years ago. Time goes too fast, doesn't it? It was difficult because in the sense I was replacing my brother. That was hard. I was there as his assistant for six years. I was prepared for an opportunity.

"When I got the phone call, he (GM David Poile) said, 'I just want you to know that a change has been made already. It happened three hours ago. So here’s the deal: If you want to be the head coach, I want you to have the job. If you say no, somebody else is going to get the job.'

“He (Bryan) supported me 100 percent. He was totally on board with me being the person who was selected. I moved forward from there."

Center Colin Fraser, who scored his first goal as a King:

"It feels like a big weight off my shoulders. It was a huge relief. Scoring goals any time feels good. It’s especially good  because of the issues with my foot."

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--Lisa Dillman

Photo: Colin Fraser, right, celebrates his first goal as a member of the Kings on Saturday night. Credit: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press

Ducks update: Devante Smith-Pelly's unusual first NHL goal

There was near cyber silence when Ducks rookie Devante Smith-Pelly checked in Thursday morning. 

He figured to hear something about his first NHL goal, which came against Nashville. But ... nothing.

"It was kind of weird just looking at my phone and no one really said anything and no one really knew," he said after practice.

Not even his parents.

What happened was that Smith-Pelly wasn't awarded the goal until after the game. He didn't even know when reporters entered the dressing room for interviews and only found out when he was about to leave Honda Center.

The goal had originally been credited to Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler, and it turned out the puck had glanced off Smith-Pelly's knee and gone in. Smith-Pelly thought it was his goal, at first.

“I guess you can kind of tell by my reaction. I was pretty excited," he said. "I turned around and everyone was at Cam, so I just kind of skated over to him. It was weird.

"After the game, guys were asking if it touched me and I said yeah."

Dustin Penner loses a point, Colin Fraser gains a roster spot

The more things change, the fewer points left wing Dustin Penner has.

The Kings announced Thursday that a video review of their third goal against Nashville on Tuesday showed that Penner should not have gotten an assist on the play and it was taken away from him, negating what appeared to be his first multi-point game as a King.

According to a statement released by the team, the review showed “that Penner lifted the stick of a Nashville player but never did touch the puck as the puck moved up the ice.” The assist he originally got was given to Willie Mitchell.

That doesn’t change the fact Penner played a solid game for the second successive night, after a strong effort at San Jose on Monday.

“He’s played better here the last three games. I really like his energy and I like the way he’s starting to move around the ice,” Kings Coach Terry Murray said before his team faced the defending West champion Vancouver Canucks on Thursday night at Staples Center.

“Much more confident, much more with authority. He’s in an athletic position. He’s got his knees bent and he’s playing both ways. And with that kind of work I think everything will get on track in the offensive part of it.”

Kings after deadline: Notes and quotes from the Kings' 4-3 victory over Nashville

Kings Coach Terry Murray, assessing his team's first win in six games:

“The effort was really good. You are playing a game last night in San Jose, a hard game, and you’ve got a team that’s sitting here fresh watching the game on television and I thought we came out and played a real good first period. I liked the energy, I liked the compete, the tempo and the attitude that we started the game with, and it had a little ebb and flow, I thought, but at the end of the day the compete was very good.”

On Simon Gagne and Mike Richards, who each scored a goal: “If you want to put them on a scale of 1  through 5, I’d give them a 4. They’ve made an adjustment in their life to come to the West Coast and be an L.A. King. That always takes time to get settled with family and kids, and you’ve got other things going on in your life. They are real pros in that they come to the rink every day and they are in their own little sanctuary and come and be good teammates and learning to be members of the team and the style, the culture that we are putting together here. So, that part there gets a 5 in my opinion and their play is a 4. They put points up on the board and they’ve been great pros to help us keep moving through it.”

On the extent of Scott Parse's lower-body injury, which the winger suffered in the first period: "A little more than day-to-day.”

Jarrett Stoll's two assists gave him 300 career points....The last time the Kings scored more than two goals was Oct. 27 at Dallas (their last win before Tuesday)....The Kings have won five of the last six meetings with Nashville.

Oilers' Ryan Smyth home again, naturally

The man who fits the phrase "the Oilers' Oiler" is back in his native Alberta.

Ryan Smyth is at home in Edmonton, where he started his NHL career all those years ago. He spoke with my Times colleague Helene Elliott shortly before the Oilers' game against the Kings on Thursday night.

Edmonton won, 3-0, and Smyth, the former King, scored the game's first goal.

Of course.

"It's been fun so far," said Smyth, 35, who requested a trade from the Kings in the off-season. "Right from the get-go, in training camp, I got to play with [Ryan] Nugent-Hopkins and [Jordan] Eberle for a while and I've just been enjoying myself and trying to relax and enjoy the teammates. And it's fun while you're winning, too, and we've been successful here lately."

The kids are more than all right in Edmonton.

"These guys have lots of energy, which rubs off," he said. "... It's inspiring. It pushes you and that's what you want. As a player you want to be pushed. And I think the experience that I've gained over the years, hopefully that can go the other way to them, so it's a two-way street."

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Photo: Edmonton Oilers left wing Ryan Smyth plays in his first game at Staples Center since leaving the Kings in the offseason. Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / U.S. Presswire

Bill Plaschke: Raffi Torres in blackface is a disgrace to the NHL



This year’s award for the scariest Halloween costume goes to the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes, who dressed in racial insensitivity then masked it as fun.

Did you hear about Monday night’s team Halloween party? Forward Raffi Torres and his wife, Gianna, showed up dressed as rapper Jay-Z and singer Beyonce Knowles, which would have been trendy and cute, except both of them were wearing blackface.

For those who forgotten their history -- and these two folks clearly did -- blackface was a type of makeup worn by vaudeville performers in the 19th century as a parody of African Americans. It was degrading then, and it is degrading now, but Torres’ teammate, Paul Bissonnette, thought it was so funny he sent out a photo of the happy couple on Twitter.

An understandable wave of criticism followed, leading to the ignorant statement that makes this costume so frightening.

The Coyotes, you see, publicly defended Torres.