FINAL – Kings 0, Maple Leafs 3 – Anderson, McLellan

The LA Kings dropped their third straight game, following a 3-0 defeat against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

After a first period that saw neither team get on the board, Toronto opened the scoring just over five minutes into the middle stanza. The Maple Leafs forced a turnover on an attempted breakout from the Kings, before forward Tyler Bertuzzi fed forward William Nylander in the slot, where the Toronto winger buried his 19th goal of the season for a 1-0 advantage in favor of the visitors.

Just over three minutes later, the Maple Leafs doubled their advantage through forward Calle Jarnkrok. Toronto once again prevented the Kings from clearing their defensive zone, with forward Max Domi working the puck to an uncovered Jarnkrok in the slot. The Swedish forward deked to the backhand, beating a pokecheck from Kings netminder Cam Talbot for his ninth goal of the season and a 2-0 advantage through 40 minutes.

After just over 19 minutes of scoreless hockey in the third period, the visitors iced the game with an empty-net goal from Nylander, his second tally of the night, for a 3-0 final margin.

Hear from defenseman Mikey Anderson and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Mikey Anderson

Todd McLellan
On the connectivity in tonight’s game that Anderson discussed
One team was fast and one team was slow, for sure in the first half of the game, and you’ve got to think about what causes that. So, passing first of all will slow a team down and I think that’s probably what they’re talking about. Very erratic, in boots, behind people, where we had to stop and restart and then get re-loaded. Two, the anticipation, working into the holes and giving somebody an out is important. Execution in certain situations that we know we have to take care of, two faceoff goals against again tonight. Those are all unacceptable, but the pace of the game, Toronto caused a lot of our problems, but LA contributed to them as well.

On the decision to move the forward lines around during the second half of the game
Well, we had three different lines, the only line that stayed together was Lizzo’s line tonight. There was a lot of movement, a lot of action with us shuffling things around, trying to jolt some players and get some guys going. So, we’ll sit down tomorrow and we’ll talk about whether we liked it or not. I do think we played more assertive and faster in the second half of the game, but sometimes the score dictates what the opponent does, as we’ve talked about that a little bit.

On making wholesale line changes for the first time this season
We had nothing going, throughout the lineup we had nothing going, so it’s blender time and trying. It’s probably the first time this year that we’ve really done that, to that extent. Every now and then, somebody misses a shift, we flip a winger or two but not to that extent. Again, I thought we played better after that, but it’s too late.

On if there was anything he liked from the line changes once they were made
I’m not sure if it was the movement or if it was the opposition protecting the two-goal lead. I thought we played with a little more pace, played in their end a little bit more. We’re slow shooting the puck right now. I haven’t seen so many blocked shots and not with bodies, just with sticks, We’re loading pucks to shoot and we’re dragging them across and releasing them late. Just the pace of everything has to pick up with our group.

On the explanation he got on the disallowed goal in the third period
The puck was covered and it was jammed in and they really don’t explain that to us. We get to decide whether or not we want to challenge it.

Notes –
– Drew Doughty skated in his 1,129th career NHL game tonight. In doing so, Doughty tied Brian Leetch for 10th place on the NHL’s all-time list for games played with one franchise among defensemen.
– Doughty logged a team-high 23:54 in time on ice tonight, one of four defensemen over 20 minutes on the night. Anze Kopitar led all forwards with 20:17 in TOI.
– Forward Kevin Fiala led the Kings with six shots on goal tonight, while defenseman Matt Roy led the way with 10 shot attempts at all strengths.
– The Kings tallied 13 shot blocks tonight during the first period and 22 in total, 8 more than their season average, per game.
– The Kings were shutout tonight for the first time this season.

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

Proudly presented by Destination Vancouver.
The Real Pacific Northwest. Go Norther.