Waking up with the Kings: December 19

There are very compelling 1-0 games, and then there are those similar to Sunday’s matinee at TD Garden, won by the Bruins in a physical match-up that featured effective shot blocking on both sides and not a bevy of chances down the center of the ice. Given David Pastrnak’s absence and several other injuries on both sides, a low-scoring game was virtually a certainty, and there was a particular mindset necessary heading into Sunday’s game. Boston entered the game averaging 2.3 goals and Los Angeles entered averaging 2.6, and this was more or less expected to be a hard-nosed, battle-for-every-inch type of a game, and that’s basically what it was. The Kings’ role players were leaned on a bit more heavily in the team’s third game in three and a half days, and Kyle Clifford, Dwight King and Andy Andreoff – the latter, despite losing containment of Colin Miller for the game’s only goal – were among those with heightened compete levels who contributed hard performances for a team that struggled to generate a ton of scoring opportunities. The Kings “played [their] asses off again today,” according to Darryl Sutter; they just couldn’t score or generate much. While they didn’t produce a surplus of scoring chances, they’re also not going to record 70 shot attempts every game. It happens; onward and upward.

By virtue of several faceoff losses and clears, Los Angeles didn’t get enough time with their top power play unit on the ice. That led to a second unit of King-Dowd-Setoguchi that wasn’t able to pick up a great deal of the slack as both units contributed to a 0-for-4 performance against one of the league’s top penalty killing teams. (On the flip side, the Kings have now killed off 17 in a row since the Montreal game and have jumped into the top 10 in the league in PK%.) This is a game that an operating-at-a-high-level Marian Gaborik would have been an asset at both even strength and on the power play, but sadly, Gaborik’s game has trended poorly on this road trip, and on an afternoon that as noted above was going to require a particular mindset and style of play, there hadn’t been enough shown by the accomplished winger in the recent games to give confidence that his particular skill set would’ve provided dividends in such a game. That’s rough; with other players out, the Kings had a combined $18,917,500 of cap space unavailable due to injury or performance, $830,625 of cap space buried in the minor leagues (which does not count $950,000 towards either Rob Scuderi or Teddy Purcell) and $1,570,000 taken up due to Mike Richards’ cap recapture and termination. (via CapFriendly)

Peter Budaj’s game has returned after a night off in Detroit, and that’s huge. He’s been Los Angeles’ best player over the last two games and was a major force in keeping Sunday afternoon from turning into a 2-0 or 3-0 game (or, perhaps worse). There have been some wonky goals allowed, but in seeing the forest from the trees, that 14-8-2 record, 2.13 goals-against average and .915 save percentage makes him among the team’s most valuable players this season. His emergence after a difficult 2014-15 has been a very positive story in hockey.