December 2 Rapid Reaction (feat. John Hoven): Kings 2, Hurricanes 0

Rapid Reaction, feat. John Hoven of Mayor’s Manor

Post-game Quotes

Willie Desjardins, on his first thoughts after Alec Martinez scored:
We had good chances, but Quick was equally good at our end, for sure. It was exciting. The guys played hard to try to get some points. It was great to see that one go in at that time. All the bench was excited with it.

Desjardins, on what Los Angeles did well to limit Carolina’s possession strengths:
We watched them on video, and we know that they stretch a lot and their D join, so it had to be a matter where our defense was standing up, taking away their time with [inaudible], and we had guys tracking back to make sure their D didn’t jump in.

Desjardins, on how big of a victory this was:
I don’t know, we’re going to have to get some victories as we go here. It was nice to get it at home, play a good game at home. We hadn’t been as good at home as we would’ve liked to have been. It was nice to play a complete game here. And I said the effort’s here. The guys are playing hard. Again, Quick, he was just outstanding tonight. He gave us a chance, and we expect that every night that when he’s in there, we know that we’ll have a chance. Got a big penalty kill, too, which was important. That five-on-three was a big kill. [Reporter: He was your best penalty killer, wasn’t he, on that five-on-three? He seemed very aggressive.] Yeah, Dave Lowry did a good job. He kind of designed the play for the faceoff, and his kills were good tonight. It was a good team effort, like all those guys. Clifford blocking that shot late in the game, there were lots of guys selling out and blocking shots, and you need that to win.

Desjardins, on Adrian Kempe not playing after taking warm-ups:
We’ll have to evaluate him again here tonight. I thought he might go. Obviously he’s close, but we’ll have to evaluate him again.

Desjardins, on differences between the first and second power play units:
Yeah, I think it’s tough – we had different guys coming on and off that power play unit. Kempe’s always a big part of it, so they had different personnel, and I think that the first unit got quite a bit of the time. I was happy with the power play tonight, though. I thought Kopitar’s unit created quite a few chances, so that was good to see.

Desjardins, on utilizing 11 forwards and seven defensemen:
Kopitar played an awful lot tonight, and that’s what it did. The centermen had to play more minutes. Kopitar was outstanding with the amount of minutes he played and what he could log. That did change it up a little bit. Especially for Kopitar, he just got more minutes than we usually would like him to get.

Jonathan Quick, on the 5-on-3 penalty kill:
PK unit did a great job tonight, especially on the 5-on-3. It takes a lot of courage blocking shots like those guys were doing and we got some clears on the 5-on-3 that were huge, just kind of releases the pressure a little bit. We created a lot of chances. We did a great job getting chances and Mrazek played great on the other end and kept it zero-zero. So it was just a big win tonight too.

Quick, on what impressed him most about the team’s performance:
We scored more than them. We’ve got to win games and in order to do that, in order to win games, we’ve got to score more goals than the team we’re playing, so that’s what we did tonight.

Quick, on his first thought after Martinez scored with just over two minutes left to play:
We scored.

Quick, on what he liked about his performance:
I just thought as a team we were able to get a win and that’s what it comes down to. We’ve kind of dug ourselves a little bit of a hole here and we need to win games, so we were able to do that tonight. We’ve got a game in two days and we’re going to try to do that again in two days.

Alec Martinez, on what the feeling was after he scored:
I mean, I think obviously, points have been hard to come by thus far and we keep talking that we’ve got to start climbing back into the standings and I said it before the game, I think that we’ve been doing a better job of playing more consistently, but that also has to translate into results and points. Obviously that was a pretty emotional one. I think, if anything, you wanted to do it for Quickie because Jonathan Quick was simply outstanding. I’ve seen that guy play a lot of really good hockey and that game was certainly up there, so if for nothing else, do it for him.

Martinez, on whether he knew right off the faceoff that he was headed to the net:
Not really. It was somewhat of a set play, but I wasn’t really — somewhat of a set play, but it was kind of a hockey read off of a set play that we try to run sometimes.

Martinez, on what they did to outshoot a Carolina team that has the best shot differential in the league:
I think for one, Jonathan Quick. Two, they’re a team they throw a lot on net. You saw them tonight, they try to create a lot of speed in neutral and send guys and do different outside-in routes and I think we did a fairly good job of shutting them down in neutral and that obviously helps you in your own end.

Justin Williams, on what he saw in a tough loss:
Well obviously both great goalies. Jonathan Quick is just a great goalie. We can just look at the obvious and how we were on a 5-on-3 for over a minute and not getting it done and bounced back, but that is just how it seems to work. We had our opportunities to win the game and the guys on the ice just could not get it done and we just had to fight.

Post-game Notes

–With the win, Los Angeles improved to 38-30-10 all-time against the Carolina franchise, a record that includes a home mark of 24-12-3. The Kings improved to 9-2-0 in the last 11 home games in the series. These teams will complete their season series on February 26 at PNC Arena.

–With the win, the Kings improved to 5-6-0 against the Eastern Conference, 3-2-0 against the Metropolitan Division, 3-4 in two-goal games, 9-2-0 when scoring first, 6-6-0 when tied after one period, 3-3-1 when tied after two periods and 3-6-0 when outshooting their opponent.

–Los Angeles improved to 105-46-39 when tied after two periods since 2009-10.

–Jonathan Quick recorded his first shutout of the season and the 50th of his career. He is the 30th goalie in NHL history to record at least 50 shutouts and is now tied with Chris Osgood for 29th place in that statistic. Currently tied for 25th place with 51 shutouts are Rogie Vachon, Dave Kerr, Tomas Vokoun and Marc-Andre Fleury.

–Since departing Los Angeles prior to the 2015-16 season, Justin Williams has lost all four games (0-2-2) he has played at Staples Center. He has two assists in those four games.

–Both of Alec Martinez’s goals this season have been game-winners (also 10/28/18 vs NYR). His two game-winning goals lead the team.

–With his fifth assist of the season, Jake Muzzin (48-150=198) is just two points shy of 200 in his career.

–By assisting on Martinez’s game-winner, Dustin Brown now has seven points (5-2=7) in his last five games.

–Anze Kopitar played a season-high 25:48. It was his most regular season ice time since he logged 27:01 in a 4-3 overtime loss to Nashville on November 4, 2017. It was his most ice time in a game decided in regulation since a 26:44 outing in a 5-3 loss at Ottawa on December 14, 2015.

–Los Angeles won 36-of-72 faceoffs (50%). Michael Amadio won 1-of-3, Anze Kopitar won 16-of-32, Alex Iafallo won 0-of-1, Nate Thompson won 5-of-11, Austin Wagner won 0-of-1 and Jeff Carter won 14-of-24.

–The Kings attempted 56 shots (35 on goal, 10 blocked, 11 missed). The Hurricanes attempted 69 shots (34 on goal, 20 blocked, 15 missed). Jeff Carter and Dougie Hamilton tied with a game-high six shots on goal.

The Kings are scheduled to hold an optional practice at Toyota Sports Center at 11:00 a.m. on Monday, December 3.

Post-game Highlights

–Lead photo via Harry How/Getty Images