The LA Kings dropped their first of two at home this week, falling by a 5-1 final against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday evening at Crypto.com Arena.
Just over 10 minutes into the game, Pittsburgh opened the scoring on the power play through forward Kevin Hayes. Working out of the right-hand corner, Hayes drove the puck towards the net. Defenseman Joel Edmundson poke checked him from behind, but the puck went right on goal, over the pad of Kings netminder David Rittich and in for the game’s first goal.
Pittsburgh then doubled their lead before the end of the first period through forward Sidney Crosby. Defenseman Matt Grzelcyk sent a shot towards the net from the left point and with Crosby skating through the slot, he deflected the puck in the other direction, past Rittich on the blocker side and in for his 13th goal of the season and a 2-0 advantage after 20 minutes of play.
The Penguins added a third early in the second period, with forward Evgeni Malkin getting in on the scoring. After the Kings were unable to get the puck out up the wall, Pittsburgh reset, working it down to forward Phillip Tomasino entering on the left wing. Tomasino deked to his backhand and fed Malkin skating into the slot, where he scored with a low shot for his ninth goal of the season.
Given 63 seconds of 5-on-3 time, the Kings got on the board as forward Adrian Kempe extended his team lead in goals with a power-play tally. Seconds after he rang a one-timer off the post, Kempe reloaded and hammered a pass from forward Anze Kopitar past Pittsburgh netminder Alex Nedeljkovic and in for his 23rd goal of the season, pulling the hosts to within 3-1.
With just under a minute to play in the second period, however, Pittsburgh restored its three-goal advantage. Hayes and forward Cody Glass gained the offensive zone with a give-and-go play, with the former feeding the latter just outside the crease, where Glass buried his third goal of the season for a 4-1 advantage heading into the second intermission.
Pittsburgh made it 5-1 just shy if seven minutes into the third period, with forward Anthony Beauvillier burying his 11th goal of the season. Crosby fed defenseman Kris Letang in the slot and though Letang’s shot from the slot was stopped, the rebound sat in the crease, where Beauvillier tapped in the goal that pushed the guests ahead by four.
Hear from Kopitar, defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s game.
Vladislav Gavrikov
Anze Kopitar
On his takeaways from tonight’s game
It was definitely not our game tonight. From top to bottom, we didn’t get anything going. Even when we did, with the power-play goal, they aome right back and scored the fourth one, which turned out to be obviously a big goal. It’s a lot different being down two going into the third versus three.
On what he could point to that wasn’t there tonight
We just weren’t good enough, that’s the bottom line. Like I said, top to bottom, left to right, the game was not there and we’ve got to make sure that our game is a lot sharper and a lot better on Wednesday.
On the rarity of a game like that for this team this season
So far, we haven’t had too many games like this. It’s probably, really the only game as a whole that was like this. We’ve had some bad stretches in periods, or bad periods here and there, but for the most part, I think we’ve been pretty sharp. This is something that we’ll address tomorrow and make sure that we’re ready for Wednesday.
On his level of concern with the offense drying up as of late
Yeah, it’s not clicking, so to speak, yeah. I’m not worried, per se, but as guys, we’re aware of that and we’ll work on it.
On being a part of the pre-game ceremony, honoring firefighters and first responders
It’s something that the team has done a pretty good job on the road, wearing the patches on the road, that was a nice touch. Pretty self explanatory, those guys risk their lives for the community and for the city and we can’t thank them enough.
Jim Hiller
On his initial impressions from tonight’s game
Disappointed. Just disappointed and on a night like tonight. I can tell you, probably count maybe only five times I’ve been disappointed in our team this season. Tonight is one of them, maybe the most.
On his initial impressions from tonight’s game
Our team competes and we didn’t compete. I don’t think we’ve won too many games this year where we haven’t competed hard. You guys would probably know better than I how many games we just went out there and played and beat teams. I don’t think there’s been too many of those. We’ve been really consistent with our work ethic, with our discipline and tonight just wasn’t our night. Over a long season, you usually say that too many times and we haven’t had to say that much this year. So, we’ll come back against the defending Stanley Cup champions and if that doesn’t wake you up and get you ready to play, I don’t know what does.
On if he likens this game at all to the loss in San Jose back in November
The game against San Jose, they had 11 shots after two periods, We weren’t playing great, but it wasn’t like this. So this is a little bit different and we need a response. Either way, we need a response.
On if the team’s offensive production of late is becoming troubling
I don’t know. Goals can be random, so you look at scoring chances, always, as the indicator. I don’t have a real good answer for you there. I think it’s a little too early, maybe you want to call it a small sample. It’s a little too early to say it’s a slump, or guys are squeezing it, or all those kinds of things, so I don’t want to go there yet. Tonight, we just weren’t even close. We just weren’t close tonight.
On elevating Samuel Helenius in the third period
I didn’t like Q’s game, I didn’t like where Q was and I thought Sammy, in his limited time prior to that, was going at least, was one of the, probably few players I thought had some energy, some physicality, some intensity, so I just wanted to reward him a little bit. Well, I shouldn’t single Q out, there were plenty of guys to go along with him. He, like the others, wasn’t on his game. I wanted to bump Sammy up, so where do you where do you put him? It’s easy to slide Q to the wing.
On experiencing the pre-game ceremony tonight
I don’t know how you guys felt, for me, it was really humbling to see the guys out there and the gals. It was humbling. I just felt that way. I felt a little emotional. I just felt like those people have been out there doing some pretty amazing things that we just saw a little bit from a long distance, and we’re in our own little bubble doing we have to do and it brought it to life for me. Pretty personal and it’s just disappointing we couldn’t do more with it.
Notes –
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) scored his 23rd goal of the season, his second power play goal in as many games. With the goal, Kempe extends his goal-streak against the Penguins to a fifth game (9-0=9), dating back to Feb. 11, 2023. Kempe joins Bernie Nicholls (6-4=10) as the only players in franchise history to record a five-game goal streak against Pittsburgh.
• Kempe becomes the eighth different skater in league history to record nine or more goals in a five-game span against Pittsburgh, joining Wayne Gretzky (5x), Michel Goulet (3x), Phil Esposito (2x), Guy Lafleur (2x), Lanny McDonald (1x), Darren Turcotte (1x), and Alex Ovechkin (1x).
• Defenseman Jordan Spence (0-1=1) notched his 12th assist of the campaign, extending his assist-streak against Pittsburgh to a third game (0-3=3), dating back to Nov. 9, 2023.
• Forward Anze Kopitar (0-1=1) collected his team-leading 31st assist of the season. The helper is Kopitar’s 17th career assist against the Penguins, tying Mark Hardy and Jim Fox for the ninth most assists against the Kings’ 1967 expansion cousins in franchise history. Kopitar also extended his assist streak against Pittsburgh to a fifth game (0-7=7), dating back to Feb. 11, 2023, and now has 12 points in the last seven games against the Penguins (2-10=12), dating back to Jan. 30, 2022.
• The captain skated in his 1,417th regular season game this evening, passing defenseman Al MacInnis (1,416) and tying Luke Richardson (1,417) for 37th most in NHL history.
The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.
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