from Mark Whicker of the LA Daily News,

Those with grayer sideburns talk about the years between 1947 through 1950, and again from 1953 through 1968. The defending Stanley Cup champions would play the best of the rest of the league.

“That was the best format ever, by far,” Darryl Sutter said Wednesday, before the Kings played Colorado and then observed the All-Star break.

Take the 1962 game, in which the champion Toronto Maple Leafs played host to the All-Star team. Rumble the tympani first, then introduce Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Bernie Geoffrion, Norm Ullman, Alex Delvecchio up front, with Doug Harvey and Pierre Pilote in back and Jacques Plante, Glenn Hall and Gump Worsley in goal.

Have you ever seen a Hall of Fame get up and skate?

And yet Toronto won, 4-1.

“It was like a playoff game,” Sutter said. “There were only six teams then.”

Waiting for an NHL job to come open was like waiting for the cable guy. The game meant something to the stars, but it meant more to the defending champs, and everything to the home fans.

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