FINAL – Kings 1, Predators 2 – Kopitar, McLellan

The LA Kings dropped the opening game of a four-game homestand, a 2-1 defeat against the Nashville Predators on Thursday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

After a first period that saw neither side capitalize, the Predators opened the scoring midway through the middle stanza.

Skating on the man advantage, Nashville set things up in the offensive zone, with defenseman Roman Josi rolling out to the center point. The Swiss blueliner sent a shot through traffic, with forward Ryan O’Reilly getting a tip on the puck and deflecting it past Kings netminder David Rittich and in for his 17th goal of the season and a 1-0 advantage.

Just over a minute later, the Kings answered with a power-play goal of their own, coming from defenseman Drew Doughty, to tie the game at one. Stationed on the left-wing boards, forward Kevin Fiala fed a pass through the middle to forward Adrian Kempe, who teed up Doughty for a slap shot from the slot, which he wired into the back of the net for his tenth goal of the season, tied for the fourth most in the NHL amongst blueliners.

Before the end of the second period, Nashville pulled ahead once again off a shot from the point, taking a 2-1 advantage into the second intermission. After a puck retrieval in the corner, the puck cycled back up to defenseman Luke Schenn at the right point, with the Nashville blueliner firing through traffic, with Rittich making the pad save, but forward Gustav Nyquist put home the rebound for a 2-1 lead.

Neither team scored in the third period, with the Kings denied on each of their 13 shots on goal.

Hear from forward Anze Kopitar and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Anze Kopitar
On what is missing from the Kings game right now
We’ve just got to figure it out, really. We’ve got to play better in certain moments of the game. It’s not like the effort’s not there and everybody wants to win, but we’ve got to play better. It starts with me on top and I’ve got to be a lot better for this team and pull along. It’s the only way we’re going to get out of it, is play hard and as a group.

On the energy level from the team tonight
I thought it was there. I thought the third period was good, we had some chances but didn’t score on them and then once it comes down to final minutes here, just trying to throw everything at them and it didn’t work for us.

On the team’s finishing right now, especially on odd-man rushes and slot chances
Yeah, it’s definitely not good when you go 1 out of the last 10 or whatever it is. So, the confidence is not sky high but it’s on us to get it back and get this thing moving in the right direction.

On David Rittich’s performance
He played extremely well, the last couple of starts. It’s obviously nice to see him get the opportunity and be there for us when we need him.

Todd McLellan
On if he felt tonight’s game was similar to the stretch that preceded it
I would say this is similar in a lot of ways, in fact I think this is a little bit different because we checked better today, we were tighter defensively, we didn’t give up a lot. Looking back to the 5-on-5 scoring, the power play’s getting us one a night, that should be okay, it’s just the lack of production offensively. A lot of it’s off the rush, where we don’t look near as confident with the puck, making plays, we’re not as relaxed with it and it’s not going into the net. So, the more that we fail to score, the tighter we get and it’s just a vicious cycle. So is it similar? Well, we didn’t score an even-strength goal in Dallas, we did in Carolina, but we didn’t score one in Detroit, I believe, all power-play goals. So, in some sense yes, but I thought we checked better. So we fixed the one area of our game, tonight we didn’t give up a lot and when we did, I thought Rittich played really well, but at the other end of the rink, you’ve got to score goals to to win. If we’re only giving up two, we should be able to win every night.

On if he feels the lack of offensive conversion is weighing on the players
I do. It’s human nature to go down and have opportunities and then be denied, but I think it takes a lot of energy out of you, because we do all the work to get to a certain point and then it chokes itself out and it’s kind of oh, here we go again. Again tonight, we had a 2-on-1 and we never got a shot on, we didn’t even think about shooting and the play evolved slowly, where we had no chance at a pass. I’d like to see us just get direct, get it to the net in those situations, make the goaltender make a save and see what happens. We had 3-on-2’s, a 4-on-2, we had some other entries where we really garbled the puck when earlier on in the year, those were nice plays that were being made. So, a little bit of stress and tension and we’ve got to fight through it.

On the approach to trying to keep the team’s mentality positive in a tough stretch
We’ve stressed, we’ve shown a lot of positive video over the last little bit. A lot of, some of it’s playing fast and playing fast defensively, but a lot of offensive, promoting offense as well and making them feel good that way. So, I think maybe that’s leading to some of the frustration too, look at what you did before but now you’re struggling to do it, so maybe we’ll have to think that process through.

On switching Dubois and Byfield during the third period tonight
Just to shake it up a little bit, see something different. I thought PL had a good game tonight. We knew we were probably going to play that line a little bit more, so to get them out there a bit. Play Q in the center hole and see what he can get out of there just to mix it up a little.

On calling his timeout with 7 seconds left, as opposed to earlier, with the goalie pulled
Because we had fresh guys going on the ice. They iced the puck, we had fresh guys going out and they were stuck keeping them on. So, we had I think it was Phil’s line going out, if I remember correctly, and Kopi’s line coming off or vice versa and we didn’t need it at that point, why give them the rest too.

Notes –
– Drew Doughty (1-0=1) scored his 10th goal of the season, recording the first double-digit goal season by a Kings defenseman since 2017-18 (Doughty, 10G). It is the eighth time in Doughty’s career that he has scored 10 or more goals in a season, tying Rob Blake for the most such seasons in franchise history.
– With his goal, Doughty has now scored a power-play goal (PPG) in back-to-back games for the sixth time in his career. Only Rob Blake (8x) has recorded more such streaks by a defenseman in franchise history.
– Doughty’s PPG marked the 77th of his career, passing Bobby Orr (76) and Rob Ramage (76) for sole possession of the 26th-most PPGs by a blueliner in league history.
– Adrian Kempe (0-1=1) tallied his 24th assist of the season for his 39th point of the campaign (15-24=39), tying him with Anze Kopitar (14-25=39) for the team lead in points this season.
– Kevin Fiala (0-1=1) registered his team-leading 28th assist of the season for the 110th point of his Kings tenure (33-77-110). Fiala becomes the 10th skater in franchise history to register 110 points within their first 111 games played with the team, the first to do so since Ziggy Palffy (111 GP, 52-76=128) in 2000-01.

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.

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