Anyone who says the West has weak teams really doesn't play too close attention to how Western teams are playing. Last game against the Sharks, the Kings played against the league top power play unit. The Sharks are currently tops in the league with a 24.4 PP percentage.

On Friday, the Kings come into the American Airlines Center to take on the league's best defensive club. Through 22 games, the Dallas Stars have a 2.10 goals allowed average. Dallas has won three of their last four games.

The Stars come out of the gates, guns locked and loaded. They outplay the Kings, as L.A. seems to fall back into some bad habits. Anze Kopitar gets called for an early holding call, and Dallas goes on the man advantage. The Kings kill off the penalty, but Jeff Cowen goes to the box for roughing.

For the fourth time this season against the Kings, Dallas draw first blood. A Philippe Boucher shot from the point gets redirected to put the Stars up, 1-0. Eric Lindros and Stephane Robidas get the assists.

For the first time in his rookie campaign this season, Kopitar gets whistled for a second penalty, this time for hooking. Less than 40 seconds later, Aaron Miller gets called for slashing, giving the Stars a quick 5-on-3 opportunity.

Dallas takes advantage when a one-timer by Sergei Zubov makes it 2-0. And has been the unsettling trend by the Kings this season, Phillipe Boucher scored his second power play goal less than 60 seconds later to make it 3-0.

First period: Stars 3, Kings 0

Trevor Daley gets two minutes for hooking, and the Kings go on the power play. Dustin Brown scores a power play goal, assisted by Frolov and Kopitar. Brown scores a second power play to make it 3-2, Stars. Kopitar made a tremendous pass over to Blake through the slot, who tapped it back to Brown to score another power play goal.

And for the first time in the game, things seem to be clicking for the Kings. Midway through the second period, L.A. has outshot the Stars, 8-4. They wound up with 12 shots as opposed to 6 Dallas shots in the second.

But Boucher scored a third power play goal this game for a hat trick. Boucher has now doubled his goal total for the year. His hat trick puts the Stars up, 4-2. According to ESPN.com, Boucher became the 11th defensemen to score a three power play goals in a game.

A play was reviewed, where it appeared a puck trickled under the Stars goaltender before the whistle blew for a faceo-ff. They reviewed it for a while, because it's wasn't clear if the play had stopped before it entered the goal. After many calls up top, they wave it off.

Second period: Stars 4, Kings 2

The third was pretty much a buildup for a letdown.

Eight minutes into the third, the Kings had a two-man advantage and Alexander Frolov crashed the net. The result was a power play goal, making it 4-3. The goal could have been reviewed, because it wasn't clear how it went in. But remarkably, they didn't review this goal, which is amazing since any Kings goal is reviewed for less than this one.

Crawford pulled Garon with a minute to go in the period, and Jere Lehtinen added an empty-netter for Dallas with 25 seconds left to make it 5-3.

Third period: Stars 5, Kings 3