The LA Kings returned to action following a nine-day break, as they fell by a 6-3 final against the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday evening in Los Angeles.
Forwards Alex Iafallo, Adrian Kempe and Trevor Moore scored in defeat, as the Kings worked their way back into game mode following the extended layoff.
The two teams combined to score four goals in tonight’s first period, all of which came within a 76-second span midway through the opening frame.
First, Vegas scored twice just 26 seconds apart to take an early 2-0 lead. The Golden Knights opened the scoring on the man advantage, as Reilly Smith cashed in at the back post for the game’s first goal. Shortly thereafter, Keegan Kolesar redirected a Ben Hutton point shot inside the left post and in, pushing the lead to a pair of goals.
The Kings pulled one back just 13 seconds after the second Vegas goal, to cut the deficit in half. Drew Doughty’s stretch pass eluded everyone, but Kempe won the icing race. The puck took a Kings-friendly bounce into the slot, to a streaking Kempe, who wired a shot past Vegas netminder Laurent Brossoit to pull the hosts to within 2-1.
It took the Golden Knights just 37 seconds to re-gain their two-goal advantage, however, as Jonathan Marchessault tallied for the 15th time this season. After William Karlsson’s shot off the rush hit the post, the Kings were unable to clear the rebound, with Marchessault trailing the play, collecting the puck, deking to his backhand and slotting home to push the score to 3-1.
The visitors struck twice more early in the second period to open up a four-goal advantage with less than 23 minutes elapsed. First, with the Golden Knights on the power play, Chandler Stephenson buried a centering feed from Nicolas Roy to make it 4-1. Just over a minute and a half later, Mattias Janmark got in on the action, as he deflected a Zach Whitecloud point shot to push the Kings deficit to four.
Late in the second period, the Kings pushed back while shorthanded to pull a goal back heading into the third. Defenseman Matt Roy flipped the puck over a pair of Vegas defensemen, to a streaking Moore, who buried five hole on the breakaway to cut the score to 5-2. Moore’s goal was his third of the season, with the Kings scoring shorthanded in consecutive games.
The teams traded goals in the third period, bringing us to a 6-3 scoreline. First, Marchessault collected his second of the game, as he picked off a Doughty clearing attempt and beat Garret Sparks from close range, to put the visitors back ahead by four. The Kings pulled that goal back through Iafallo, who took a cross-ice feed from Sean Durzi and went top shelf, over the right shoulder of Brossoit, to make it a 6-3 game.
Hear from Kempe and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.
Adrian Kempe
Kempe says turn the page new game in 2 days#LAKingsLive | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/xm0q5ipzVB
— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) December 29, 2021
Todd McLellan
On if tonight was about engagement or execution
Both. If you look at the first period, we forgot who we were. We would pinch in the most inopportune times, we got lazy in transition from offense to defense, it was outnumbered rush after outnumbered rush and that’s not who we are. To me, that’s execution, but that’s also being engaged. My gut was pretty darn right, coming out after two practices.
On the Kings re-engaging midway through the game
Well, we barked a little bit, we played our way in. Embarrassment sometimes does that to you as well. We do have a lot of pride in there, there’s a lot of strong-willed guys and they got it back. We fixed the structure, the outnumbered rush stuff between periods, I think we only gave up one or two more the rest of the night, and that happens sometimes. Then, we got them to physically engage some more, but you’re not scoring seven goals, which we would’ve needed tonight, against that team. The rest of the night was just about trying to get back to playing the way we need to play.
On taking something into tomorrow and Thursday
It gives the coaching staff now, we’ll have their attention tomorrow. We’ve been trying to get it for a couple of days, so we’ll have it tomorrow.
On the level of play after nine days in between games
Not as good as it needs to be, but, and this isn’t letting the players off the hook, it’s almost expected. You do the best you can to get them ready to go, they need to take the test and get the grade to really understand whether they did their homework. We took it and failed.
On Alex Turcotte’s game and his line’s play
Tough game for the kid to play in. By the time he gathers his wits about him, it’s 5-1 or whatever it was and then you get into that situation, there’s half a night left and you’re a little bit anxious, you probably don’t want to make the next mistake and have it pile on, so you play a backed off game a little bit. Now, I thought Turc handled himself extremely well, we’ve seen improvements in his game and as he gets more confident, he’ll get more aggressive, his shift length will get a little bit longer, he won’t be afraid of making mistakes. He certainly wasn’t our problem tonight.
On missing a defenseman like Alex Edler in tonight’s game
Yeah, Edler, Walker, even Maatta, for the most part. That wasn’t Drew Doughty tonight, you can tell he hasn’t played in two and a half weeks and needs to get going again, he’d be the first to tell you that. You take three of our three top, mature, d-men out of the lineup and your go-to guy has an off night, that’s a tough load for a lot of others to cover up.
On new coaching personnel filling new roles due to COVID-related absences
They were great. Hajter’s been back there before, he’s been in the league, he’s an outstanding coach, he’s doing a tremendous job in the American League right now. He’s brought some structure in there, in his short period, and I’m happy that he’s getting his opportunity there because he deserves it. Derik [Johnson] has been around the game for a long time, he has some bloodlines as far as coaching goes, his role was smaller than what Hajter’s was but he did a good job as well. The prep that went into both power play and penalty kill meeting was done very well by both Sam[son Lee] and Derik, they got an opportunity and that’s a really good thing for them.
Notes –
– Anze Kopitar collected his team-leading 19th assist of the season. The helper was the 673rd of his NHL career, as he surpassed Wayne Gretzky (672) for second on the all-time Kings assists list.
– Adrian Kempe scored his team-leading 13th goal of the season tonight, giving him goals in consecutive games.
– Trevor Moore collected his first shorthanded goal of the season and the third of his NHL career. The Kings have now scored shorthanded goals in back-to-back games.
– With an assist on Kempe’s goal tonight, Drew Doughty has now tallied points in three consecutive games. Doughty has a point in eight of the 12 games he’s played this season.
– Defenseman Sean Durzi tallied his sixth assist of the season tonight, which ties him for fourth in the NHL amongst rookie blueliners this season.
– Forward Alex Turcotte made his NHL debut this evening with the Kings. Turcotte played 12:08 in his first NHL game, including 35 seconds on the power play, tallied three shots on goal, two penalty minutes and won five of 10 faceoffs.
The Kings are scheduled to return to the ice for practice tomorrow morning, at 11 AM, at Toyota Sports Performance Center.
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