Waking up with the Kings: March 8

The Los Angeles Kings were unable to find a big goal against the Pittsburgh Penguins in their 1-0 overtime home loss on Saturday and were forced to settle for an unsatisfying single point in their playoff chase. It wasn’t for the lack of a strong effort; the Kings won the territorial battle and worked heavily in the offensive end, even if the scoring chance discrepancy wasn’t as wide as Los Angeles’ 31-18 shots on goal advantage in a mostly even game. Both Jonathan Quick and Marc-Andre Fleury were excellent, and if you’re looking for the backbone behind the Kings’ recent penalty kill success and their 10-3-1 record over their last 14 games overall, it’s because Quick has been playing his best hockey since October. Saturday’s game was the sixth time in his last 13 games that he allowed either no goals or one goal, and by stopping 17 of 18 shots against the Penguins, he upped his save percentage over his 13-game span to .926.

After outshooting Pittsburgh in each period and generating consistent pressure over the game’s final 10 minutes, Los Angeles was done in by a wave of pressure in their defensive zone that they couldn’t stem. Struggling to exit the zone and work the puck away from dangerous areas amidst a heavy Penguins forecheck, Jeff Carter’s pass up the center of the ice to Tyler Toffoli gave the talented young winger a very short period of time to gauge the situation and make a play. He wasn’t expecting Paul Martin to immediately apply pressure in a four-on-four situation, and instead of deflecting the puck away from a dangerous area, he tried to control the puck and lead a breakout to a neutral zone-bound Matt Greene. Martin forced the turnover, and top-six winger on the All Kings Killer Team Patric Hornqvist beat Quick with a wristshot above his blocker. There’s so much chaos in hockey; there very may well have been a different outcome last night if Carter’s first pass attempt hadn’t banked off Brandon Sutter’s skate and directly back to him, which allowed an extra second for Martin to decide to apply the pressure.

The on-ice officials have a difficult job and face intense scrutiny and fan discontent, so it’s only appropriate that they’re commended when they make a split second judgment call that turns out, after multiple video replays, to be the right one. Referee Jean Hebert immediately waved off Jake Muzzin’s third period wristshot that beat Fleury inside the far post when he deemed that Dustin Brown made incidental contact with Fleury’s catching glove and left arm and prohibited the goaltender from being able to make a save on the shot. There’s no controversy here; the call is correct. One of Brown’s strongest qualities is his net-front presence and ability to screen goaltenders and get his stick on pucks headed towards the net, and the way that he plays, there will be one or two of these waved off goals each season. There was nothing blurry or grey about the play. It was not a good goal.