Waking up with the Kings: February 17

With Los Angeles returning to play from a bye week, and Arizona concluding a three-in-four stretch with significant travel, in retrospect it’s not the biggest surprise that the game played out as a familiarly zany reboot to the Kings-Coyotes rivalry. Those predictably unpredictable games usually are held at Gila River Arena and not Staples Center, and in the latest installment, several of Arizona’s very good young players made a quick impact on the game against a team that made mistakes early and didn’t receive solid goaltending. It’s broad and sweeping to take a macro, results-based approach and say Just Don’t Fall Behind By Multiple Goals Early In The First Game In A Week Because We All Know The Record Of Teams Coming Off Bye Weeks And How Hard It Is To Play From Behind When You Don’t Score A Ton Of Goals, but that’s exactly what Los Angeles did, even though they improved throughout a game they would have won if they’d received equal goaltending. But Budaj had an off night, there were some lapses in detail and execution early, and the visitors won the special teams battle in a two-goal decision.

Arizona has allowed the most scoring chances in the league, so the lack of Grade-A chances through two periods – was Adrian Kempe’s breakaway the only one? – represented the familiar development where the Kings clearly dictate the run of play but generate a bevy of low-probability shots. That changed in the third as Los Angeles operated with a steady attack and generated a lot of looks from around the net, but they were trailing by multiple goals for most of that push. In the end, the only power play scoring chance that Bo recorded was Tanner Pearson’s goal with half a minute remaining.

Kings fans are justifiably upset about the decision to stop play late in the third period, which resulted in an apparent good goal coming off the scoreboard, but that type of judgement happens a small handful of times across the league each month. When the referee loses sight of the puck, he blows his whistle or concludes that “the play has been stopped, even if he had not physically had the opportunity to stop play by blowing his whistle,” according to Rule 78.5. The goal would have brought the Kings within one with 5:29 remaining, so even with the momentum and push on their side, there’s still a probability much lower than 50% that L.A. even gains a point from that game.

I asked several players after Thursday’s morning skate about the underrecognized but effective players on Arizona. Some of the names that surfaced, in addition to Max Domi, were Tobias Rieder, Jordan Martinook, Ryan White and Connor Murphy. I don’t believe Brendan Perlini was mentioned, but those who’ve played against him either in the OHL, AHL or the rookie games between the teams know that this is a player with some pretty serious skill and ability to bury the puck. Perlini, Rieder and Martinook all scored as those who’ve stung the Kings in the past continued to do so as the newest wave of Pacific Division Regicide Enthusiasts. One player, when asked about some of Arizona’s less heralded skaters, used a word to underscore Rieder’s speed that the commenting rules below forbid me from sharing. Obviously, there’s a much greater collection of experienced talent on the other side, and teams that have hopes for the playoffs need to claim points from the Coyotes, even if their team is coming off a bye week against a group that’s now 7-3-1 in its last 11.