April 1 Rapid Reaction: Flames 7, Kings 2; MacDermid leaves with upper-body injury

Post-game Quotes

Willie Desjardins, on an assertion that Calgary responded better to a big hit than Los Angeles:
I’d agree with him. If that hit would do anything, it should fire us up. They come up, they got one right at the start of the period. It seemed to deflate us, and then they got another one right after that. We didn’t for whatever reason – we were in the game going into the third, and we weren’t ready in the third, and they just started going in.

Desjardins, on the root of Jonathan Quick’s recent struggles:
I think it’s a tough year for him. I think he’s a great goaltender, and he’s proven it time and time again. And there’s been games here, and tonight, he’s made big saves that should give us time to go the other way and turn the game around, and we haven’t done that, so we haven’t helped him. We haven’t given him what he needs. But he’s a guy that’s always there for his team. In practice, he’s ready. He’s focused, and there’s nobody that wants to win more than he does. I think it’s a tough night for him, for sure. But if you go back to the Edmonton game, I came back with him the next night, and the reason I came back is because I know how much he wants to win and I know that I can count on him. He’s just got that character.

Desjardins, on whether he waited to pull Quick in the third period:
Yeah, those happen quick. The last one, it was just that time. I had to make the move. I didn’t blame him for the goals. I wasn’t blaming my goaltender for that. We weren’t ready as a team.

Anze Kopitar, on a bitter ending to a special night for him and Brown:
Yeah, I mean obviously certainly not the game we wanted. Kept it close for two periods and then it got away in a hurry.

Kopitar, on the game snowballing in the third period:
It was just breakdowns. It was odd-man rushes, plays that needed to be made and weren’t there, and guys in wrong positions and that was it.

Kopitar, on what the veteran players like himself want to get out of the final week of the season:
The way the season has gone, everybody is going in the wrong direction, so you want to make sure that the last three games, you’re not going to flip the switch and turn it around right away, but we’ve got to start working towards the future and just building the chemistry and the culture again.

Drew Doughty, on what went right in the first 20 minutes:
I don’t know, honestly. I don’t know if anything really went right tonight. We lost the game 7-3, or 8-3 or 8-2, I don’t even know what the score was. But we just didn’t have a good third period and we just gave pucks away, that’s the bottom line. We just gave pucks away and the other team comes at us and rushes us all night and we continue to play like that and that’s why we lose all these games.

Doughty, on the game going south after Gaudreau’s goal:
I was trying to block the pass and give him the shot and he took it. Made a nice shot, but I don’t really think that was the turning point. I think more their first goal on the first shift of the third was more so the turning point. I thought we had the momentum coming in after the second period after Dermie’s big hit, but we just fell apart in the third period and it just snowballed on us.

Doughty, on putting this game behind them:
We play tomorrow, so just go home and try to get some sleep and play tomorrow.

Doughty, on whether playing tomorrow will help put tonight’s loss out of their minds:
I wish we played all four games in a row to be honest. I just want to get this over with. But yeah, it’s good to play tomorrow and get over this one.

Doughty, on whether the loss puts a damper on Brown and Kopitar’s milestones:
It’s still a great accomplishment for both of them. It doesn’t matter what the score was. We weren’t going to have time to celebrate tonight anyway because we play tomorrow, so we’ll just have to wait until Saturday.

Injury Update

Kurtis MacDermid did not return to the Kings’ bench for the third period, at which point it was shared by the team’s public relations staff that he had suffered an upper-body injury and was not expected to rejoin the team for the third period.

MacDermid will not travel with the team to Arizona Monday night for Tuesday’s game against the Coyotes, Willie Desjardins confirmed.

Asked whether the injury was related to his punishing hit near the end of the second period in a violent collision that left Calgary forward Sam Bennett woozy before he returned to the dressing room, Desjardins responded, “I’m not quite sure, I just know it’s upper-body.” That was MacDermid’s final shift of the game.

Dion Phaneuf and Paul LaDue did not play Monday and would be candidates to play Tuesday at Gila River Arena.

MacDermid has added a sharper first pass to a skill set that leans heavily on his strength and physicality, and has shown improvement during his recall. He appeared in eight of the last nine games and recently drew praise from Drew Doughty for his presence as a physical deterrence. “I think when he’s in the lineup and on our team, other teams are less likely to take liberties on our top players,” Doughty said Saturday.

In 11 games with Los Angeles, MacDermid has one assist, a minus-one rating and 11 penalty minutes.

#Flames coach Bill Peters says Sam Bennett is “fine” and will play again before end of regular season. Good news on the hard-nosed winger.

— Wes Gilbertson (@WesGilbertson) April 2, 2019

Post-game Notes

— With the loss, Los Angeles fell to 98-115-30 all-time against the Calgary franchise, a record that includes a home mark of 59-48-13. The Kings finished the 2018-19 series with a 1-3-0 record against the Flames, marking the first time Calgary won three games in regulation since 2009-10.

— With the loss, Los Angeles fell to 20-22-5 against the Western Conference, 12-11-3 against the Pacific Division, 5-5-1 on the first night of back-to-back sets, 11-20 in games decided by three or more goals, 9-36-6 when their opponent scores first, 14-16-4 when tied after one, 2-34-3 when trailing after two and 17-24-6 when outshot by their opponent.

— The Kings lost by at least four goals for the 11th time this season and yielded at least six goals for the 10th time this season.

— Anze Kopitar became the 337th player in NHL history to play 1,000 games and the sixth fastest player to reach 1,000 games (1,000 games in 1,029 team games) all with the same team. Only three players have played more games with the franchise: Dustin Brown (1,114), Dave Taylor (1,111) and Luc Robitaille (1,077). He is the 56th player to have played for the Kings to reach 1,000 games played and the 22nd player to accomplish the feat in a Kings uniform. Among franchise leaders, Kopitar is fourth in games played, fifth in goals, fifth in assists, fifth in points, seventh in power-play goals, fifth in short-handed goals and third in game-winning goals.

— Michael Amadio extended his point streak to four games (1-3=4).

— Kyle Clifford scored his 10th goal of the season, marking the first time he reached the 10-goal plateau.

— Los Angeles attempted 52 shots (25 on goal, 12 blocked, 15 missed). Calgary attempted 57 shots (30 on goal, 12 blocked, 15 missed). James Neal led all skaters with six shots on goal, while Kyle Clifford finished with a team-high four shots.

— The Kings won 26-of-56 faceoffs (46%). Adrian Kempe won 4-of-11, Michael Amadio won 5-of-8, Anze Kopitar won 9-of-19, Alex Iafallo won 1-of-1 and Jeff Carter won 7-of-17.

Post-game Highlights

–Lead photo via Yong Teck Lim/Getty Images