FINAL – Kings 2, Avalanche 5 – Kopitar, Laferriere, McLellan

The LA Kings opened the 2023-24 season with a 5-2 defeat against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

The Avalanche scored the lone goal of a relatively even opening period, taking a 1-0 advantage into the first intermission. Forward Jonathan Drouin worked the puck along the boards to forward Mikko Rantanen, stationed behind the net. Rantanen found linemate Nathan MacKinnon, who shook free in the slot, for the game’s first goal, MacKinnon’s first of the 2023-24 season.

Early in the second period, Colorado opened up a three-goal advantage thanks to a pair of goals scored just 53 seconds apart. First, the Avalanche hit the back of the net on the power play, as defenseman Cale Makar dragged the puck into the slot and snapped a shot past Kings netminder Cam Talbot from between the circles. Rantanen made it 3-0 with his third point of the game, as he beat Talbot from a sharp angle at the bottom of the left-hand circle.

The Kings got back into the game through forward Carl Grundstrom, who created a goal off the forecheck. Grundstrom finished his check on Colorado defenseman Jack Johnson and went to the front of the net, where he redirected a pass from forward Phillip Danault into the back of the net for the first Kings goal of the season.

With less than 10 seconds remaining in the second period, the Kings pulled back to within a goal through forward Quinton Byfield. After a flipped puck into the offensive zone by forward Anze Kopitar, Byfield tried to find forward Adrian Kempe at the back post, but his pass deflected off a Colorado stick, over Avalanche netminder Alexandar Georgiev and in for Byfield’s first of the season.

After the Kings were unable to convert on a power play early in the third period, Colorado went the other way and pulled back ahead by two goals, with a 4-2 advantage. Defenseman Jack Johnson sent a shot towards the net, with Rantanen getting a deflection moving through the slot the slot, re-directing the puck past Talbot for a 4-2 advantage.

Forward Miles Wood added an empty-net goal for the 5-2 final.

Hear from Kopitar, forward Alex Laferriere and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Alex Laferriere

Anze Kopitar
On getting the chances tonight and overpassing at times
Maybe it didn’t fall, maybe it didn’t bounce our way, but then again I think we could have done a better job of directing everything more towards the net, versus trying to find the perfect play. Obviously, power play was 0-for-5 tonight, so we’re going to look to improve that going forward and obviously try and win some games.

On what he felt went wrong tonight on the power play
I mean, it’s hard to say right now. We’ll look at the game and look at the video and maybe just too much passing, not enough focus towards the net. We’ll talk about it and we’ll fix it.

On how he felt the group handled 11 forwards tonight, compared to Saturday
Yeah, it was better today. It felt like it was better rhythm and more flow to the game, guys were I think more engaged, but then again, it’s the first game of the season, so that will do it to you.

On seeing his linemate, Quinton Byfield, get his goal tonight
I think it’s huge for everybody, not just for him. To come out and he made some strong plays, he made some good plays, just like he did last year. Hopefully, him individually and us as a line, we’ll benefit from that and just go from where we left off last year. It’s good to see him get on the sheet and hopefully me and Juice can get on it pretty soon too.

Todd McLellan
On his overall takeaways from tonight’s game
I thought we did some good things in the game. I think territorially, it was fairly even. I thought what they did better than us was commit to finishing things. They went and got pucks, they got sticks on pucks, they got bodies in front of pucks, broke plays up defensively that we didn’t do. Offensively, they went and got pucks and tipped pucks and we didn’t do that. They were better in those two areas and as a result, they ended up winning. Our power play was, at times, dangerous and at times again, we looked good doing nothing, so we’ve got to fix that a little bit. Penalty kill, we gave up a goal, I’d like to see us in the shooting lane in that instance, we weren’t and if you look at the blocked shots, another area that they were better in, 23 to 11 and that’s part of getting in the way more to break plays up than we did.

On looking for the perfect play too frequently in the offensive zone
What ends up happening is when you over-pass, you slow everything down because you’re looking for the perfect play, it gives them time to react and guess who gets frustrated? The team that’s passing the puck probably a little too much. We started the night on the power play prepared to shoot. Drew took a couple of good cracks at it and we got the puck back and then as the night went on, we started to move it around too much. Then, anything we did get off, they seemed to get a stick on it or the goaltender got in the way.

On Alex Laferriere during his NHL debut and if the group gained momentum off his fight
I’m going to talk about Alex’s play first, because the fight was a byproduct of what was going on, but I thought he had a tremendous night. He looked like he’s played in the league for a long time. That’s pretty exciting for our organization and for him. He fit two offensive players very well, had real good instincts both offensively and defensively, we had zero hesitation about putting him on the ice. The fight itself was a scrum, we all got involved, we took care of each other and sometimes in those situations, there’s a pair that comes out of it swinging and he happened to be the one doing it. He handled himself very well and it did give us some energy.

On how he felt the group adjusted to 11 forwards today versus Saturday
Much better, but we committed to almost playing three lines and then just rotating a few guys through every now and then. Who gets the short end of that stick is sometimes Lizotte, Lewis, Grunny, yet they found ways to have an impact in the game. They were involved in the game scoring, Lizzo had a great chance at the end, but it allowed for more flow up front. The guys had an idea of what was coming, rather than wondering what may come.

On his evaluation of Quinton Byfield tonight
We talked about one young player in Laf, the other young player that I thought had a really good night, maybe his best game as a King, was 55. I thought he was all over the ice. He looked confident, he made great plays not only offensively but defensively. Nice to see him score a goal for all the hard work he did, but I thought he had a really strong night and something to build on as he goes forward.

Todd McLellan also shared the following update regarding forward Viktor Arvidsson, who missed tonight’s season opener with a lower-body injury –

“Arvy’s not going to be back for a little while, so I’ll break that news to you, so you can figure out from there.”

McLellan added that Arvidsson will not play on Saturday against Carolina. From there, we’ll see how things go.

Notes –
– Carl Grundstrom (1-0-1) scored the Kings’ first goal of the 2023-24 season, marking his first career goal against the Avalanche.
– Quinton Byfield (1-0-1) scored his first goal of the season in his 100th career NHL game, becoming the 32nd different Kings skater to score in their 100th career game. With tonight’s game, Byfield is the ninth different skater from the 2020 NHL Draft class to reach such mark.
– Anze Kopitar (0-1-1) recorded an assist on Quinton Byfield’s second period goal, establishing a new franchise record for the longest season-opening point streak (5-8=13), breaking a tie with Marcel Dionne (1-8=9 from 1976-77 to 1980-81). Only Washington’s Alex Ovechkin (13-11=24) has more points in season-opening games among active players than Kopitar’s 23 (9-14=23).
– Phillip Danault (0-1-1) recorded the first assist of the season. Danault set a new career-high in points (18-36=54) last season, the fifth-most on the team. This assist ties Danault with Kings teammate Pierre-Luc Dubois in points (3-7=10) against Colorado by active Quebec-born players.
– Pierre-Luc Dubois made his LA Kings debut, recording 20:28 minutes of time-on-ice (TOI). Dubois is only the second player in NHL history to play for the Columbus Blue Jackets, Winnipeg Jets/Atlanta Thrashers, and LA Kings franchises. The first player to achieve this feat was Fredrik Modin (176 GP w/ Columbus in 2007-10; 36 GP w/ Atlanta in 2010; 20 GP w/ LA in 2010).
– Alex Laferriere made his NHL debut tonight, making him the second member of the 2020 NHL Draft class on the Kings roster after Quinton Byfield. With his debut, Laferriere is just the second Harvard alumnus to play for the Kings, joining Ted Donato (2 GP in 2001-02).

The Kings will not practice tomorrow. The team is scheduled to practice on Friday at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

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