Todd McLellan post-game quotes; Kings-Avs post-game notes, highlights

Todd McLellan, on whether the team is winning with a similar formula each night:
Yeah, and usually that’s a sign of a pretty good team when you can just repeat over and over again. Good goaltending, good team play. I did feel or think – and I’d have to review it – but I thought the game got away from us a little bit in the third. I thought we got sloppy, we got cute. We’re not a cute team, we’re a direct team, and we had some opportunities to put pucks to the goaltender’s pads and get whistles in the offensive zone, slow it down a little bit and we didn’t do that, and they got a little bit of life off that. So, we’ll look at it tomorrow. There’s always things to work on and things to fix. We’ve got to get our power play moving the puck a little bit quicker – but it’s fun winning. A lot of times throughout the year I think we’ve played that same game and maybe not had a bounce or didn’t get a timely goal and didn’t get the reward, so now we’re starting to get it, which is a good thing.

McLellan, on the ability to roll four lines and establish balance in ice time:
A lot of five-on-five time. They lost a Hart Trophy winner, too, halfway through the night. They were a three, sometimes a four-line team. Dressing seven defensemen made it hard a little bit too. We just rolled guys out and counted on Kopi’s line to check what was left of their top players much as we could, and the other lines did a pretty admirable job.

McLellan, on Alex Iafallo’s big insurance goal:
Yeah, and that even started earlier on the breakout part. I don’t know who it was, somebody had the wherewithal to rim against their forecheck and Alex pushed out. Did a really good job of staying over top of a puck that could’ve been batted away. It wasn’t clean is probably the best way to say it. But then a hell of a shot to be patient and put it upstairs. That was a backbreaker, something that we needed because they had a little momentum. We’re thankful for that.

McLellan, on the satisfaction of beating teams with a lot to play for:
Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to get a B-game. When I look at the lineups that we’re playing and the type of teams we’re playing down the stretch, there have been a lot of desperate hockey teams that are playing. The ones that aren’t – and we’re one of them – going to qualify, they’ve got a lot to play for in a very short period of time. I’ve said it with our group and I’m sure other teams are saying it, we’ve got three weeks now to look, to evaluate, to make decisions based on what evidence you’re going to provide us down the stretch, and a lot of our players that have graduated up, and there may be more later on to get the opportunity, you have to take advantage of this time frame, and the veterans have to show that they can lead. They’ve done a good job of that. So, everything’s falling into place. I don’t know that any other team in the league would approach it any way, so it’s desperate hockey for us, as well.

McLellan, on whether he could sense a run like this coming:
I’d be lying to say I wasn’t concerned. I was concerned at the deadline. We’d been on the road a lot. I remember the feeling, I think it was in New York where guys started to leave the building and Campbell went and Cliffy went and that road trip wasn’t a lot of success, so you could feel a little tension around the group, but they’ve come back. Only one of two ways: you can roll over and play dead, or you can move the needle a little bit, and we’ve chosen to move the needle until this point. I’m proud of the group, but we’ve got a lot of work to do.

McLellan, on Mikey Anderson’s first career goal:
Shoot the puck. It’s great – I should’ve used it in the time out in the third period. You’re sharp, but we had guys going down that hadn’t scored in a while wanting to make a cute play. Mikey fired the puck at the net, they deflected into their own goal. But that can happen. Without that shot to begin with, nothing dangerous is ever going to happen around the net. We’ve got to get back to that a little bit, but good for him. The whole bench was so excited for him.

McLellan, on Anderson’s offensive potential:
For me, I think he’s got really good anticipation skills, and he seems to be able to thread the puck through from the point. IT’s not always about scoring the goal from there, it’s about creating the opportunity for your teammates, and he seems to do that. I think right now he’s getting his feet wet in the league, he wants to break plays up, play well defensively. Perhaps there’s more offense there as we move on, but we’re not going to try and squeeze it out of him. We want him to be comfortable and just continue to do what he’s doing right now.

McLellan, on whether he gets joy out of seeing a player score their first career goal:
Oh, yeah. You watch Kopi score a great goal, you see Alex score his tonight and it’s almost old hat. You get emotional, excited as a coach and coaches and players, but to see somebody score their first, there’s a lot of joy in that, and it’s contagious throughout the whole bench. I think everybody on our team now, if I’m correct, has a goal, and there’ll be more to come as more kids enter the lineup. But it’s a really exciting moment when that happens for a team as well as the individual.

Austin Wagner, on Mikey Anderson’s first goal:
It was great, he deserved it. He’s played really well for us since he’s been up and I’m really happy to see him get that first one. Even though it wasn’t the highlight reel he wanted it was still a goal, and a goal is a goal, they don’t ask how, they ask how many so we’re all happy for him and hopefully he can keep going.

Mikey Anderson, on whether he expected to receive such regular ice time:
No. I came up just trying to get a taste of what it was like, trying to get a feel for the league. Just to come up and play my game, I was feeling confident down in Ontario and kind of whatever was going to happen was going to happen. But, so far I’ve been feeling comfortable and I think a lot of that goes to Roysie [Matt Roy] he’s been awesome back there with me.

Jared Bednar, on Colorado allowing two first period goals:
Well, it was a tough way to start because they came after us hard. Obviously, knowing that we played last night, and they worked extremely hard on the forecheck. They turned over a lot of pucks and we just didn’t look crisp and sharp. So, we dug ourselves a hole. That being said, you look at their two goals; they got the bounce off our defenseman on the one and we over-skated the other one.

Gabriel Landeskog, on whether the team is fatigued at this point of the season:
Yeah, I mean it would be weird if we weren’t, to be honest with you. But, it’s a part of it. I thought we were mentally tired. Sloppy, especially in the first. And still adjustments we make, we don’t really execute on them. I like the way we battled and the way we battled all the way until the end. It is what it is, and we would have obviously liked to win this one.

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, on facing an LA Kings team with little to lose:
Well, obviously there are a lot of young guys that after the trade deadline are coming in and getting a chance. And they played hard and you need find a way to play those games, even it’s in a back-to-back or anything. There are a lot of young guys and they outcompeted us in the first period. And then, we felt like in the second and third, we were playing better and better. But, it was too late.

Post-game Notes:

— The Kings won their sixth consecutive game, the longest since they won eight consecutive games Nov. 25-Dec. 9, 2017. The club record is nine consecutive wins, set in the 2009-10 season.
— Jonathan Quick notched his 16th win of the season, stopping 21 of 22 shots. He has not lost a game in regulation in the last six games (5-0-1), posting a .956 SV%, a 1.54 GAA and one shutout over that span.
— Mikey Anderson (1-0=1) scored his first career NHL goal in his fifth game.
— Alex Iafallo (1-0=1) scored his 17th goal and recorded his 43rd point of the season. He has set career highs in goals, assists and points. He ranks second on the team in points.
— Matt Roy posted a plus-1 rating. He currently leads the team with a plus-15 rating. Anze Kopitar’s +7 ranks second on the team.
— Drew Doughty (0-1=1) posted his 27th assist of the season, the second most on the team. He also tied Butch Goring (284) for seventh on the Kings’ all-time assists list.

Post-game Highlights:

The Kings are scheduled to practice at 11:00 a.m. Tuesday at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

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