The LA Kings lost in regulation for the first time this season on the road, dropping a 4-1 decision against the New York Rangers on Sunday evening at Madison Square Garden.
For the second straight game in the Empire State, neither team scored during the first period, but tonight, it was the Rangers that opened the scoring early in the middle stanza. Skating on the power play, forward Mika Zibanejad one-timed a feed from forward Vincent Trocheck, past Kings netminder Pheonix Copley, for his seventh goal of the season and a 1-0 advantage for the hosts.
Later in the second frame, New York doubled its advantage through forward Jimmy Vesey. After a turnover on a failed clearing attempt, forward Nick Bonino sent Vesey in on a breakaway, with the Rangers forward scoring through the five hole, with a deke to the backhand, for his sixth goal of the season and a 2-0 advantage for the hosts.
After a penalty-filled start to the third period, the Kings finally broke through with a power-play goal, pulling to within one early in the final frame. Off a controlled zone entry for the Kings, forward Anze Kopitar fed linemate Adrian Kempe down low to establish control in the offensive end. Kempe walked out from behind the goal and fed forward Phillip Danault at the back post, where Danault buried his seventh goal of the season.
The Rangers concluded the scoring with two goals less than four minutes apart to pull away in an eventual 4-1 victory.
First, the hosts scored their second power-play goal of the evening through forward Jonny Brodzinski, who worked his way into the slot and buried a one-timer off a centering feed from Trocheck for his first goal of the season, scoring against his former team. New York forward Will Cuylle capped off the scoring on the evening with a rebound goal, getting the second or third effort to go after a sprawling, left-pad save from Copley had denied the first effort. Trocheck collected the primary assist on that goal as well, his third of the evening.
Hear from defenseman Mikey Anderson and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.
Mikey Anderson
On the challenges of coming back against the Rangers
I think it gets hard once you’re down. Obviously, they’re a good team, they’re very structured like us, there wasn’t much going either way. So, getting down kind of makes it tough to push back, we weren’t able to get through their neutral zone as good as we’d probably like to and didn’t get enough puck flow to create any chances to really have a threat to come back.
On what he felt was missing in tonight’s game, and what the group could have done better
I don’t know if it’s off by much, it’s kind of just little details. You look at it as a whole, they score on a rebound, they score on a power play, we don’t get one on a power play. All the things you kind of need to have go your way in a tight-checking game and they were on the right side of it today. If those go the other way, who knows what happens but yeah, it just wasn’t going our way.
On how he felt the blueliners handled playing with five for two periods
Yeah, obviously we don’t want to see him go, he’s a huge part of what we’ve got going on the backend so that’s never good. I thought, overall, it was good. It’s just about more communication, making sure you know who’s going with who, trying to keep them somewhat short to keep everyone fresh and not getting stuck out there.
On how he hopes to see the Kings respond to some of the first adversity they’ve faced this season
A lot of things have been going our way, so it’s nice to have a little adversity. We’ve got faith in our leaders, the guys that have been here for a long, long time, they’ve righted the ship. I don’t think there’s going to be any sense of panic or anything in the group, we trust what we have here, we trust what we’re doing. Get back in LA, get back to work and figure some things out.
Todd McLellan
On what he felt the Kings were missing in tonight’s game
I don’t think we played poorly, I just don’t think we played a game that allowed us to have any chance at winning. When you’re in the box for 10 minutes, whether they were good calls or not, you can’t put that team on the power play for that amount of time. We played five games in eight nights and that’s very taxing for the group. Then, you throw in the fact that we lose a couple players to injury, one to a ten-minute misconduct, it’s just too much to ask from the group. A lot of the penalty kill was spent in our zone we didn’t win faceoffs, so guys were caught out there for two minutes, so it just didn’t work well for us tonight, as far as managing the energy level for whatever reason.
On how he felt the group’s legs work on the backend of a 4-in-6
Well we played, it was a week ago tonight when we played Colorado, so we’re 5-in-8 with travel and we saw what happened to Colorado that night. I actually thought that we had some half-decent legs, it’s just we used up all our energy penalty killing and you can’t do that.
On how he felt the defensemen handled playing with five after Gavrikov exited the game
Again, I’m going back to what I said earlier, the five guys did a really good job, it’s just that they got trapped in their end, not 5-on-5, but throughout the penalty kills. I keep using the word taxing, you keep asking me that question and there’s no other way to put it.
On if he felt there was a consistency to the penalties the Kings took tonight
It was a variety, some confusing ones, quite frankly. I didn’t understand some of them from the Rangers perspective as well, so it all evens out at the end of the night, but there were some confusing ones.
*Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov left the game with a lower-body injury and did not return after the first intermission.
Notes –
– Phillip Danault (1-0=1) scored his seventh goal of the season, with the team’s lone tally on the evening midway through the third period.
– Danault’s goal was a power-play goal, the third straight game in which the Kings have scored a goal on the man advantage.
– Adrian Kempe (0-1=1) notched an assist to extend his point streak to five games (1-5=6).
– Anze Kopitar collected a helper for his 16th road point (6-10=16) of the season.
– Skating against the Kings for the first time in his NHL career, goaltender Jonathan Quick made 25 saves on 26 shots to seal his eighth victory of the season.
– Tonight’s game was the first regulation loss of the season for the Kings away from home.
The Kings have a scheduled off day tomorrow. The team will return to the ice on Tuesday at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.
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