A collection of unforced errors and uncharacteristically sloppy defensive zone play plagued the Los Angeles Kings in a 6-4 defeat to a Dallas Stars team that had entered the night with five wins in 19 road games. There were extremes in goaltending, and for the most part, they weren’t good for either squad. Still, while Peter Budaj (and Kari Lehtonen) didn’t make it through the full 60 minutes, the Kings netminder also made several highlight-worthy saves early in the second period on Patrick Sharp and Tyler Seguin Grade-A chances, though he wasn’t able to negate defensive zone lapses by the players around him. Dallas also deserves credit; while there were, at times, turnovers and poor Los Angeles defensive zone coverage, there were also several unheralded plays to set up key goals. Darryl Sutter hates those faceoff goals, but Sharp deserves recognition for a quick flick off Radek Faksa’s faceoff win to play the puck away from Drew Doughty and towards Jamie Oleksiak for a bang-bang goal right off the draw. On the Stars’ fourth goal, there was a really good forward push by both Faksa and a net-crashing Devin Shore, and Dallas replicated that thrust of pressure on the game-winner, forcing a botched hand-off between a slow-to-react Peter Budaj and Alec Martinez. While there were also Kings to be faulted on those goals, the Stars deserve their credit for forcing the issue and getting their big bodies to crash the net and take advantage of L.A. mistakes.
It’s lost in a game in which the Kings gave up five plus an empty-netter, but it’s clear that the constitution and belief is still there. There were gaffes, yes – whether from Jeff Carter’s touch on the first goal, an entire line failing to channel the puck away from the slot on the second goal, or the other goals mentioned above – but there was always the credence and expectation that they’d claw their way back into the game to the degree that it’s almost surprising they didn’t get a point out of a game they trailed by two midway through the third period. Again, this is an area where the Stars deserve credit. At virtually any opening of momentum for Los Angeles, Dallas was right there to quash it. 2:38 after Nick Shore’s quick release while shorthanded brought the Kings within one, Oleksiak responded. 43 seconds after Dustin Brown halved the Stars’ lead again, Devin Shore (no relation) responded. And 2:26 after the bang-bang Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty goals tied the game up, Jiri Hudler popped in the game winner after Seguin was a little too quick for the Budaj-Martinez handoff.
It was a difficult night for the Muzzin-Martinez pairing, a grouping that hasn’t exactly trended well. Again, there were plenty of mistakes to go around when dissecting the team’s defensive zone play, and, granted, one of Martinez’s dashes was due to an empty-netter, but any time two players who form a pairing combine to go minus-nine, that raises the proverbial eyebrow. I want to hear the coaches’ perspectives before going into greater detail, but Martinez’s play, speaking on a very shallow level, appears to have dropped off from the very high point it had been at to start the season. Muzzin is the more peeculiar case, and there looks to be a greater volatility in his game when comparing the highs and lows associated with his stratospheric 2013-14 (and an awfully good 2015-16), and inconsistency inherent in other stages, notably his 2016-17 campaign. On the other hand, Drew Doughty has shaken off any questions about his own game and has raised his play over the past month. He was terrific on Monday and showed excellent patience in issuing the puck up-ice to set the wheels in motion for Shore’s shorthander.
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