LAst Night's Action: Duck, Duck, Coyote

#1 Oregon Ducks defeat UCLA Bruins 60-13. Oregon made sure they didn’t repeat Alabama’s and Ohio State’s mistakes being felled as the top-ranked team of the country. Granted they racked up “only” 582 yards of offense, but they held the Bruins to 290 yards of total offense in their rout of UCLA.

Bruin quarterback Richard Brehaut, starting in place of Kevin Prince who is scheduled to have arthroscopic knee surgery on Saturday, went 16-for-23 with 159 yards for a team that has averaged 95.5 yards passing. Despite beating the Ducks in time of possession - 38:31 vs. 21:29 - the Ducks fast paced offense helped make that stat irrelevant.

Anaheim Ducks defeat Philadelphia Flyers 3-2. For the first time this season, the Ducks scored the first goal of the game. Off of a shot by Jeff Carter deflected by Ducks’ goalie Curtis McElhinney to the boards, Corey Perry advanced it to the Flyers’ blue line leaving it behind for a trailing Lubomir Visnovsky that froze all of the defenders. Visnovsky only had Kimmo Timonen and the goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to beat and beat he did as he blasted a cannon from right behind the face-off circles 35 seconds into the game.

McIlhenney had a couple of problems killing the puck which allowed the Flyers to tie the game twice: Scott Hartnell’s goal 4:16 in the first period to tie the game 1-1; Claude Giroux’s goal 13:50 in the second period to tie the game 2-2.

Jason Blake scored his first goal of the season 10:52 in the first period, but Ryan Getzlaf scored the winning goal 18:14 in the third period thanks to Andreas Lilja’s jarring hit on Giroux as he was driving into the Ducks’ zone which allowed Corey Perry to lead the charge.

McIlhenney made 40 shots for the Ducks while Bobrovsky saved 19.

Phoenix Coyotes defeat LA Kings 4-2. It was too little too late for the Kings. By early in the second period the Coyotes had busted out to a 3-0 advantage thanks to Lee Stempniak’s two goals in the first period and Andrew Ebbett’s short-handed goal 5:49 in the second. Head Coach Terry Murray responded by adjusting the third line to Wayne Simmonds and Brad Richardson as the wingers with rookie Brayden Schenn centering.

This line proved to be the Kings’ only source of offense as Simmonds scored both Kings goal, the second coming 17:19 in the third period to cut the Coyotes’ lead to 3-2.

The Kings couldn’t get anything past Coyotes’ goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, and Stempniak scored an empty-netter with 35 seconds left in the game for his first career hat trick and icing the game.

Jonathan Quick saved 23 shots for the Kings while Bryzgalov saved 28.

NOTABLE NOTES

Drew Doughty Knocked Out. In Wednesday night’s game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Kings’ defenseman Drew Doughty was knocked out on a hit by Hurricanes’ left-winger Erik Cole 18:57 in the first period. Doughty was listed with an “upper body injury.” According to Kings.com Rich Hammond, General Manager Dean Lombardi said that Doughty would be out at least a week. Hammond also reported that Cole would not face any discipline for his hit.

Murray wasn’t quite forthcoming about the hit and the extent of Doughty’s injury after the game. Early in the postgame conference when asked about it by reporters Murray said, “Drew is a… upper body injury.”

Is he travelling with the team to Phoenix?

“No, we’re not going to take him. He might join us on the trip.”

Any idea how serious this is?

No answer.

Later he would go into detail about the play itself.

“It was a Cole hit in the neutral zone,” Murray said. “Doughty carried the puck out of our zone. The puck had long gone - he didn’t have it for a long way whenever the hit happened.”

After a 3-0-0 home stand, the Kings go on the road for five games in seven days against the Phoenix Coyotes, Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild, Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars.

TONIGHT’S ACTION

No games.