FINAL – Kings 4, Red Wings 3 – Durzi, Grundstrom, McLellan

The LA Kings capped off a 4-0-0 homestand with a 4-3 victory over the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

The Kings scored two power-play goals in the win, led by Sean Durzi, who collected his first career multi-goal game at the NHL level. Forwards Phillip Danault and Arthur Kaliyev each had two assists in the win, while forwards Carl Grundstrom and Kevin Fiala also scored for the Kings.

Just nine seconds into the game, the Kings opened the scoring with the second-fastest goal in franchise history. Off a faceoff win at center ice, defenseman Alex Edler sprung Rasmus Kupari and Carl Grundstrom on a 2-on-1 rush, with Grundstrom burying Kupari’s pass through the slot for his fifth goal of the season. The goal fell just two seconds shy of the fastest regular-season goal in Kings history.

Detroit equalized exactly four minutes later, however, with a power-play goal to knot the score at one. Defenseman Filip Hronek, stationed at the center point, fed winger Dominik Kubalik at the top of the right-hand circle, where the winger one-timed the puck home through the five hole for his seventh goal of the season.

The Kings took the lead into the first intermission with a power-play goal, coming from the top unit, to take a 2-1 advantage. After he took a seam pass from defenseman Drew Doughty, Fiala moved the puck to the backhand and his shot went through the five hole of Detroit netminder Alex Nedeljkovic for his fifth goal of the season.

Durzi extended the lead to three as he a pair of goals during the second period, pushing the Kings advantage to 4-1 through 40 minutes. First, shortly after a power play had expired, Danault fed Durzi at the back post, where he finished first time for his second goal of the season. Midway thorugh the frame, Durzi scored a power-play goal, a one-timer off a Kaliyev feed, to create his first career multi-goal game at the NHL level.

The Red Wings scored twice in the third, one on the power play and one on a 6-on-5 with the goaltender pulled, to move within 4-3. Early in the frame, forward Dylan Larkin cashed in from the low slot with a bang-bang play, which he finished for his seventh goal of the season. Defenseman Filip Hronek moved the visitors a goal closer with 2:01 remaining, as his shot from the point evaded traffic and found the back of the net. The Kings held on from there to seal the one-goal victory.

Hear from Grundstrom, Durzi and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s victory.

Carl Grundstrom

Sean Durzi
On seeing improvements to the power play tonight
Yeah, I mean right off the bat, the top unit did a great job moving the puck. You saw Dewy on the outside make a really nice seam pass, obviously a fortunate bounce for Kevin and I’m sure he’ll gladly take those but either way it was going back door to Kopi who was going to tap it in. Good play all around and getting the puck movement from them and us.

On the shooting mentality shown by the Kings on the PP
Yeah, you make the pass when the pass is there and when I see traffic and see guys making a good play in front, whether it’s a screen or a tip or something like that, I get the puck to them. I thought I had a couple of good opportunities to shoot, obviously the first one I slipped back door and it was a great pass by Phil, off a rebound from Arty. Shooting the puck is the only way to score really, you sometimes get fortunate bounces, but that’s how you’ve got to score. Shoot the puck, get good bounces, getting it back and obviously fortunate to get them in the net.

On improvements to his own game, specifically with playing on the left
It’s good, really good, a lot better. To have Yawns working with me every single day with reps in practice, morning skate just working on the left side, collecting pucks on my backhand and making clears. Whether it’s working in the shooting room after practice, it’s really just getting comfortable and being dangerous from that side. I think it’s a really good tool that I’ve now added to my game and every single game I’m more comfortable and I’m learning. Whether I can be a shooter off that side, a passer, the deception, it’s completely different from the right side, my edges and all that. I’m adding it to my game and obviously I’m going to continue to get better but from the beginning of the season, I think it’s gone a long way.

Todd McLellan
On a 4-0-0 homestand
It was a good homestand and I thought our road trip set us up for that. We played a really good game in St. Louis, we got spanked in Dallas and learned a lesson and we probably deserved better in Chicago, so it gave us some momentum coming home. If you look at the goals against on the homestand, even tonight there wasn’t an even-strength goal, it was two power plays and a 6-on-5. A power-play goal last game and then a shutout, so we haven’t given up much at 5-on-5, which we’re happy about. A few things to clean up, but good teams play with detail all the time, over and over again, they don’t let it slip. That’s what we’re pushing to be.

On if he’s happy with improvements made to end the “run and gun” style
Yeah I am, but you know what, we’re coaches, we whine about everything. We just won four games at home and we’re trying to fix something already, maybe we’ve got to smarten up a little bit and relax, but that’s what we do. There are parts of our game that are really good right now, there are other parts that we can improve on. I thought we should have had control of the third period better than we did today, started right off the bat, we weren’t sure if we wanted to play cute or if we wanted to play direct. We tried the cute way and we went to the penalty box, gives them the chance to pull their goalie, I don’t think they’re pulling him at 4-1. We didn’t need to be in that situation, but we were.

On seeing the work put into the power play show up in tonight’s game
Yeah I think it did. It wasn’t dramatic, there weren’t wholesale changes, it was just certain tweaks and competitive situations. We thought we had to get better in them and we saw that tonight.

On the growth in Sean Durzi’s game and his growing comfort level on the left side
I wouldn’t say it’s getting easier, because it’s a hard task, but he’s getting more accustomed to it. He’s learning, or maybe he’s learned already, when those pressure points come and how to react to them. If you haven’t played on your off side, that’s all brand new and some of the situations he’s been caught in, you don’t see him caught in those spots as much any more. Repetition, practice and playing, he’s doing a really good job.

On Anze Kopitar’s ability to calm a game down at the end
You can pretty much count on him to do that. He’s been our best faceoff guy, we want him in those situations. He’s calm and he’s so strong, when it’s time to defend he gets it done. Really good teams, these guys won championships because they sacrificed, they gave up offense, they did what other teams didn’t want to do in the past and we still have some of that room. Drew, Quickie and Kopi, they have to give and give so that the team can win and they did that in the past and we want them to keep doing that. Kopi did that tonight 6-on-5, he didn’t cheat anywhere and that’s a really good quality that those three have and we want them to promote that.

*McLellan added that initial reports on Brendan Lemieux, who did not return for the third period, indicate that he might “out for a little while”, but he will be evaluated in the morning.

Notes –
– Sean Durzi collected his second and third goals of the season for his first career multi-goal game at the NHL level.
– Carl Grundstrom opened the scoring nine seconds into the game, marking the second-fastest goal to begin a regular-season game in franchise history behind Dave Williams (0:07 on Feb. 14, 1987 vs. Hartford).
– Forwards Phillip Danault and Carl Grundstrom each collected two assists in tonight’s win.
– Danault has now tallied multiple points in consecutive games, while Kaliyev picked up the first multi-assist game of his NHL career.
– Forward Adrian Kempe collected his 100th career assist with the secondary helper on Kevin Fiala’s goal in the first period. Kempe became the 20th member from the 2014 NHL Draft class to reach the mark.
– Kevin Fiala scored his fifth goal of the season and 28th career power-play goal. Fiala now sits one point shy of 300 for his NHL career and has collected a point in six straight games versus Detroit.
– The Kings have now won five consecutive games at Crypto.com Arena and overall, the Kings are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games played.

The Kings are not scheduled to skate tomorrow morning and are set to travel to travel North of the Border to Calgary tomorrow afternoon. The team will return to the ice for morning skate on Monday from Alberta.