FINAL – Kings 2, Lightning 3 (OT) – Roy, McLellan

The LA Kings dropped their sixth consecutive game tonight, falling 3-2 in overtime against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday evening at Amalie Arena.

After another first period that came and went without a goal, the Kings broke the deadlock just past the halfway mark of the middle stanza to open the scoring. Defenseman Jordan Spence drove down the right wing, shielding the puck below the goal line as he waited for a lane to open up, before he eventually fed forward Phillip Danault in the slot for his eighth goal of the season from a dirty area.

Just under three minutes later, the Kings doubled their advantage via defenseman Matt Roy, who scored for the second time in three games to push the Kings ahead 2-0. Forward Kevin Fiala gained the offensive zone and used a deceptive slap-pass to find Roy as he entered the zone. Roy carried onto his forehand and fired off the crossbar and in from the slot, past Tampa Bay netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy on the blocker side, for his second goal of the season and the two-goal advantage.

For the third time in six games, the Kings saw a 2-0 lead overturned, as Tampa Bay scored twice in the third period to force the game into overtime.

First, with more than 12 minutes gone by in the third period, forward Tyler Motte cut the Kings’ lead in half from close range. Forward Mikey Eyssimont drove down the left wing, circled towards the back of the net and slipped a centering feed to Motte, who buried from close range for a 2-1 score. Forward Brandon Hagel made it 2-2 with just shy of four minutes remaining in regulation. Hagel shrugged off a body check on his way to the net, maintained possession of the puck and snuck a shot past Kings netminder Cam Talbot to force the game into overtime.

With the teams skating 3-on-3, Tampa Bay worked the puck to defenseman Nick Perbix, who got a step behind the Kings in the defensive zone. Perbix deked to his backhand and scored through the five hole for his first goal of the season and the overtime game-winning goal.

Hear from Roy and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Matt Roy
On where he feels the group is falling short right now
Just finishing. We know we’re a good team, we can get the lead, we know we can play with lead, it’s just for some reason, it’s just not working right now. So, we need to figure it out and stick to the details that make us win and go from there.

On if he feels the mentality of the group is changing with a 2-0 lead
I wouldn’t say it’s mentality. I think we get the lead and we may not be as aggressive as we were to start the game, so I think that could be fixed. I don’t know, it’s just like I said, just sticking to details. We know we know we can win games. Every team goes through slumps and this is ours. We just need to fix it.

On if this is a type of adversity the team can learn from in the long run
Yeah, for sure. We just have to overcome it first. So hopefully, next game, we can have a good effort and come out with a win.

On his goal tonight and his willingness to activate offensively on the rush
That was a good play by Kevin. I’m glad I could get my shot through and have it go in. I think we’re all capable of doing it, I think it’s just a matter of getting bounces here and there sometimes. So hopefully, those keep going in.

Todd McLellan
On tonight’s game and if he saw similarities to Edmonton and Detroit
Every one of these is a little bit different. Again, we have a two goal lead, we’ve got to kill some penalties against a very potent power play, we get that job done, kind of re-establish 5-on-5 play and then we make some critical mistakes. A turnover in the neutral zone, the rush is coming right back at us, that play is just too high risk with seven minutes left. We’ve just gotta get pucks, coaches say this all the time, get pucks behind them and go work for them. We did some of that in the second period, some of it in the third, but in those critical moments, it didn’t happen. We got caught a little bit on a line change on the second one, still a 2-on-3 and that’s got to be killed too. So, a couple of critical mistakes and all of a sudden, the game’s in overtime. The difference between winning and losing, we talked about it before the game, was just a sliver of a moment or a play and we’re still finding ourselves on the wrong side. I thought we played a better game tonight that we did in Washington, so maybe we’re working our way out of it.

On if he feels that team confidence is slipping at all on this losing streak
No, confidence, I don’t think that you walk around town and just lose your confidence. It’s how you play and the things you do that make you feel comfortable on the ice. Some of these decisions that we’re making, tonight and some other games, we made them more accurately early in the season. We didn’t make these mistakes and when we did, we’d clean them up somehow and we’re not cleaning them up, we’re paying the price for it right now. So, we’re in one, we’ll dig our way out, but I don’t think confidence is just lost. You play yourself into confidence or you play yourself out of confidence.

On how he felt the game-tying goal was defended
We stepped up with a d-man and we’re caught in a lane change, we didn’t have support in behind and I think it was Hagel that got the puck in, but even at that point, it’s two versus three and we’ve got it taken care of. He made a good play, kept the puck alive and it’s in the net. So, I’d like to think that we would kill that 99 out of 100 times, in fact, we have to kill that 99 out of 100 times and tonight was one that we didn’t.

On Matt Roy’s goal and his timely ability to join the rush
Offensive defenseman arrive on time. They’re not too early, they’re not too late and they’ve got a little bit of momentum to take them into open ice. A couple of Matt’s goals have been like that lately. He’s arriving on time and he’s able to be moving and his momentum takes him to open ice so he can get a shot off. So, good for him. He’s go confident that way right now, we’ll get a few others like that.

On the process of the coaches challenge in the second period
Multiple issues in that situation. First of all, the referees have to decide if the whistle was blown or not, they whether the goal actually crossed the line, which it clearly did. They had some penalties to call, so once all that got settled out, then we challenged. We were pretty sure that I think it was Cirelli’s foot hooked on Talbs’ pad and swung him around. So, that’s the end of that.

On Jordan Spence’s play tonight coming back into the lineup
We’re in a situation where we’re going to play seven defenseman, and I’m going to get asked this question every night if we take Spenny out and put Clarkie in, I’m going to get asked again and we’re just going to play ping pong back and forth. If they don’t play well, I’ll probably tell you guys that, because then I won’t have to answer the question every night. I didn’t think Spenny was bad, it’s just that we’re trying to develop a couple of young defenseman right now and they both deserve to play.

Notes –
– Phillip Danault (1-0=1) scored his eighth goal of the season to extend his point streak against Tampa to five games, including goals in his last four consecutive outings.
– Matt Roy (1-0=1) tallied his second goal of the season and first of his career against the Lightning.
– Trevor Moore (0-2=2) notched his 10th and 11th assists of the season as part of his sixth multi-point effort of the campaign, and fifth on the road.
– Moore skated in his 300th career NHL game tonight, becoming the third undrafted California-born player in NHL history to skate in 300 games, behind Chad Ruhwedel (337) and Kevan Miller (352).
– With his assists, Moore became just the third skater in franchise history to record a multi-assist effort in their 300th career game, joining Brian Benning (0-2=2 on Dec. 27, 1990) and Mark Hardy (0-2=2 on Feb. 14, 1984).
– Jordan Spence (0-1=1) collected his 13th helper of the season.
– Kevin Fiala (0-1=1) registered his team-leading 24th assist of the season to extend his point and assist streak against the Lightning to five games (1-5=6), dating back to Nov. 21, 2021 (w/ MIN). Fiala becomes the second Swiss-player in NHL history to record a point streak of at least five games against the Tampa Bay Lightning, joining Timo Meier (5GP, 4-4=8).
– With the Kings’ successful second period challenge, the team improved to 3-1 in coach’s challenges this season.

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 8 AM Pacific, 11 AM local, in Florida.

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