February 14 Rapid Reaction (feat. Jesse Cohen): Canucks 4, Kings 3 (SO)

Rapid Reaction, feat. Jesse Cohen of Kings Men Podcast

Post-game Quotes

Willie Desjardins, on the frustration over yielding a late tying goal and losing in a shootout:
That’s frustrating, but I thought it was a hard game all the way through. I thought right from the start it wasn’t going to be you were going to get anything easy out there tonight. I thought our group showed a lot, though. I thought we had lots of chances. I thought their guys battled too after having a back-to-back.

Desjardins, on Michael Amadio and Austin Wagner:
Yeah, it’s good. They had a couple again tonight. That line, they’re pretty opportunistic right now. They’ve been capitalizing on their chances, which is good. Not only that, they had some pressure too. Like, when they were out on the ice, they were hard on the other team’s D. They were working hard.

Desjardins, on Sean Walker’s status:
I haven’t seen him, but it sounds like everything’s going to be OK.

Desjardins, on Ilya Kovalchuk’s physical play:
He’s got lots of emotion out there. He’s excited by it, he wants to play well, he wants the team to do well, he’s excited when they score. He’s just as excited if somebody else scores as if he scores, and that’s a good sign. He’s an excellent person and he wants to win. Like, he really wants to win. He’s been good. The last games he’s been playing hard.

Alec Martinez, on losing despite battling back to gain a lead in the third period:
I mean, I think we believe in the guys in this room, but at the end of the day we need points right now. I sound like a broken record.

Martinez, on his goal:
Yeah, I think that Lewie, Ty, and Leiper did a good job of working ‘em down low and then I’m just up top and I’m trying to get a shot on net and you know fortunately it was able to go in.

Martinez, on looking ahead to Saturday’s game:
I think you know you just got to learn from this stuff. I think that we’ve been practicing better as of late and that’s translated into games, but like I said, we need points right now.

Austin Wagner, on Vancouver scoring final minutes of the game:
Well we have to be able to hold that lead there. So that’s — honestly, I don’t know — right now I’m just kind of trying to get over it, but you know we play again Saturday. We’ve got to be ready to go for that one.

Wagner, on playing with the lead:
We believe in each other in this room and that’s what we’re trying to do — get leads and play with the lead — but we didn’t get it done tonight so we’ve got a game here on Saturday here and we’ll be ready to go.

Wagner, on what the team will focus on in practice tomorrow:
We have to have good practice habits and when we do we play well, so we’ll do that tomorrow and we’ll be ready.

Wagner, on the challenge of losing after battling back to take a lead in the third:
Yeah, this organization, this hockey club, has always been one to take pride in their game and never give up on anything, so that’s what we did. We battled back, so I think we just need to clean it up a little bit there and that’s something that we’re going to get and be ready to go on Saturday.

Wagner, on how he feels after leaving the ice following Guillaume Brisebois’s hit:
Yeah, I’m fine.

Wagner, on the team finding more success at overcoming the deficit as of late:
You know we’re a really good team this year. We have a lot of key components that make us a really good team. We’re able to play with leads, we’re able to score goals, but we’ve got to help out Quickie. Quickie was making a lot of saves tonight and not even saves from afar, but a lot of grade-A chances. He can’t do that every night, so we need to tighten it up for him and once we tighten up our D-zone we score enough goals. We hold the other team to two goals and the game’s over if held them to two goals tonight, so Quickie kicked real hard tonight and gave us a chance.

Post-game Notes

–With the shootout loss, Los Angeles fell to 110-105-37 all-time against Vancouver, a record that includes a home mark of 67-43-19. The Canucks are 4-1-1 in their last six visits to Staples Center. The Kings are 1-1-1 in the four-game season series with one remaining game, March 28 at Rogers Arena.

–With the shootout loss, Los Angeles fell to 14-15-3 against the Western Conference, 8-8-2 against the Pacific Division, 11-4-6 in one-goal games, 7-24-5 when allowing the first goal, 11-12-4 when tied after one period, 6-5-3 when tied after two periods, 7-6 in games decided after regulation, 2-2 in shootouts and 8-11-2 when outshooting their opponent.

–Jonathan Quick fell to 1-2 in shootouts this season and 43-34 in his career. By stopping one of three shooters, he is now 187/271 (.690) in his career against individual shooters. Ilya Kovalchuk improved to 3/4 this season and 27/66 in his career, Anze Kopitar fell to 1/4 this season and 38/102 in his career and Adrian Kempe fell to 1/2 this season and 3/5 in his career.

–Tyler Toffoli and Adrian Kempe’s five-game point streaks (both 4-3=7) were snapped.

–Since returning from injury, Trevor Lewis has appeared in two games, logging a total 24:59 with two assists, a plus-three rating and five shots on goal.

–Kyle Clifford (0-2=2) tallied his second consecutive multi-assist game. With 13 points (7-6=13), he is two points shy of tying his career-high in a season (15, 2014-15).

–Austin Wagner (1-0=1) scored his 8th goal of the season. He has four goals in the last four games, including three in his last 15:06 of ice time.

–The Kings attempted 64 shots (38 on goal, 11 blocked, 15 missed). The Canucks attempted 54 shots (27 on goal, 13 blocked, 14 missed). Adrian Kempe, Trevor Lewis and Elias Pettersson tied with a game-high four shots on goal. Paul LaDue and Drew Doughty were the only L.A. skaters that didn’t register a shot on goal.

–Los Angeles won 22-of-57 faceoffs (39%). Adrian Kempe won 3-of-10, Michael Amadio won 5-of-8, Anze Kolpitar won 12-of-27, Ilya Kovalchuk won 0-of-1, Alex Iafallo won 0-of-1, Trevor Lewis won 1-of-7, Dustin Brown won 0-of-1 and Carl Hagelin won 1-of-2.

The Kings are scheduled to practice at 11:00 a.m. at Toyota Sports Center on Friday, February 15.

Post-game Highlights

–Lead photo via Adam Pantozzi/NHLI