FINAL – Kings 1, Stars 5 – Lewis, McLellan

The LA Kings concluded a season-long, six-game roadtrip with a 5-1 defeat against the Dallas Stars, on Tuesday evening at American Airlines Center. The Kings concluded the trip with an overall record of 1-3-2.

Dallas opened the scoring just shy of the halfway mark of the opening period, through forward Roope Hintz. Off the rush, the Stars gained the offensive blueline through forward Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston. The latter distributed the puck to Hintz in the slot, where he pulled it to his forehand and snapped a shot past Kings netminder Cam Talbot for the game-opening goal.

Less than five minutes from the first intermission, the Stars doubled their advantage, as they took advantage of a fortuitous bounce for a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes. Dallas again gained the offensive zone, this time through forward Evgenii Dadonov, who put a centering feed off Talbot’s pad, off the skate of defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and narrowly over the goal line for his tenth goal of the season and a 2-0 advantage.

Just over 90 seconds into the second period, the Kings got on the board with a power-play goal from defenseman Drew Doughty. After forward Phillip Danault drew a penalty on the first shift of the middle stanza, he fed Doughty at the center point for a one-timer, which evaded everyone in front and beat Dallas netminder Jake Oettinger through the five hole to cut the score to 2-1.

In a span of less than four minutes, Dallas took a 2-1 lead and expanded it to 5-1.

First, the Stars’ top forward line combined again in the offensive zone, with Johnston this time the finisher. Hintz made a short, quick pass to Johnston in the left-hand circle, where the latter fired past Talbot on the glove side for the goal and a 3-1 advantage. Just 63 seconds later, forward Joe Pavelski made it 4-1, as a shot from the point went wide off the endboards, but deflected back into the slot, where Pavelski put it home for a 4-1 lead. Forward Sam Steel made it 5-1 just shy of the midway mark of the third, as he converted on a shorthanded 2-on-1, finishing the pass from forward Radek Faksa.

Hear from forward Trevor Lewis and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Trevor Lewis
On his takeaways from tonight’s game
You know, I think our passing wasn’t very good tonight and they capitalized on a lot of those chances when we had the puck or they transitioned quicker than us and they capitalized on a few there early in the third.

On how much the Kings had in the gas tanks tonight in Dallas
I don’t think there’s any excuses, I mean we’ve all been around long enough to play these back-to-backs and it was a three o’clock game yesterday, so there was no excuse for that. I thought we were good in spurts but just not a full 60 tonight.

On the team’s play in the second period and what he liked about that stretch
Yeah, I think in the second we were good. We got back to our game and kind of kept it simple and got more pucks to their net. They don’t make it easy to get those chances at their net and in the second, we did a good job and we kind of got away from that in the third.

On if the Kings could have turned the game around by capitalizing on their chances in the second
Nothing’s going easy for us right now and we’re going to come out of it and then we’re going to be stronger for it. We’ve just got to keep fighting and keep working through.

On the message to the group right now, heading home off of this trip
I think when times get tough, that’s why you build that structure at the beginning of the year and you build your foundation, your identity. When times get tough, you have to fall back to those and just kind of keep it simple, play to your identity and work through it.

Todd McLellan
On his evaluation of tonight’s game
I’ll start at the beginning of the night, I thought it took us some time to find our legs and get going and we’re down 2-0 by the time that happened. I thought we had a tremendous second period, a character period. Going into the third, you had a feeling that we either needed the next or we were going to be in a little bit of trouble and obviously they got it about four or five minutes in. After that, we have to open it up. I didn’t think our passing and our execution again in the third period was anywhere near what it was in the second. 2-on-1’s, 3-on-2’s, we had a 4-on-2, we had a power-play entry, just the passing annihilated any opportunity that we had at offense. They, on the other hand, they came down and they scored on three entry goals and they made their plays, that’s the difference.

On the play in the second period and if the Kings lack of finish let them down in that period
We were a lot cleaner. Sometimes when you play back-to-back and you travel like we did, it does take a little bit to get your legs going, that’s understandable, but the passing – whether it was the quarterback or the receiver – in the first period wasn’t real good. Then, that began to dissipate, I thought, late in the first. In the second, we were well connected, we looked fast, we were on top of them, we created multiple scoring chances and didn’t finish. In the third, after they got that goal, I thought our execution was poor again. So, we’ll get home and get some rest and get ready to play on Thursday.

On if the lack of polish and finish in the second let the Kings down tonight
We had our share of opportunities. We had a shorthanded 2-on-1 and we never got a shot on goal, they scored on theirs. They had 3-on-2’s, as I said earlier, they executed on them. We had a 4-on-2 and didn’t even handle the puck and that’s concerning for me, because I think we have some really talented people right now that aren’t, you know, we stress checking and preventing, but we also have to score goals. When you don’t use the opportunities you have, the sixth game on a road trip, it’s going to be hard to win and we didn’t take advantage of them.

On the energy levels tonight after a game when the Kings exerted a lot emotionally and physically in Carolina
Back-to-back games are hard in the league, but everybody wants to play them. We can’t use that as an excuse. It’s been a long road trip, yeah, but it’s been an emotional roadtrip for a lot of people. We’re struggling right now to win games, a lot of them are close, I’d even consider this one close until the back end of it. But, it’s the NHL and every team goes through the travel rigors that we just went through and I don’t think anybody in our locker room, at least during the coaches room, was even considering throwing that out there as it’s okay we lost because we have to play back-to-back.

Notes –
– Drew Doughty (1-0=1) scored on the power play to tally his 150th career goal, joining Rob Blake (161) as the only other defenseman in franchise history to reach the 150-goal mark. Doughty is the eighth active blueliner to hit the milestone.
– It was Doughty’s third power play goal (PPG) of the season and the fifth PPG of Doughty’s career against the Stars, tying Justin Faulk for the most PPGs scored against Dallas by an active defenseman.
– This marked the 76th PPG of Doughty’s career, trailing only Brent Burns (87) and Shea Weber (106) for most among active defenders.
– With an assist on Doughty’s goal, Phillip Danault (0-1=1) picked up his 19th helper of the season and now has points in six consecutive games (2-6=8). Danault’s current streak ties Quinton Byfield (6GP, Oct. 31 – Nov. 11, 2023; 0-9=9) for the third-longest point streak by a Kings skater this season.
– Danault has now tallied a point in each of his last three road games in Dallas (1-2=3), dating back to Feb. 3, 2022.
– This six-game streak is also Danault’s second longest road point streak all-time, behind only a nine-game streak (5-5=10) from Mar. 19–Apr. 27, 2022.
– Adrian Kempe (0-1=1) tallied his 23rd assist of the season. Kempe becomes just the seventh Swedish skater this campaign to record ten or more power-play assists.

The Kings will travel back to Los Angeles following tonight’s game in Dallas. The team has a scheduled off day tomorrow and will return to the ice on Thursday morning at Toyota Sports Performance Center at 10:30 AM, before taking on the Nashville Predators at 6:30 PM at Crypto.com Arena.

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