FINAL – Kings 0, Panthers 3

The LA Kings dropped their third consecutive game on the road, falling 3-0 against the Florida Panthers on Wednesday evening at Amerant Arena in Florida.

The Panthers opened the scoring just shy of five minutes into the game as forwards Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett connected on a goal just outside the crease. After the Kings were unable to clear their defensive zone up the wall, the Panthers converted quickly with Tkachuk setting up Bennett with an empty net and the veteran forward converted for his 16th goal of the season and a 1-0 lead.

For the second straight game, the Kings conceded a 5-on-3 goal, with the Panthers capitalizing to take a two-goal lead. After an offensive-zone penalty from Trevor Lewis and a high-sticking call on Warren Foegele, Tkachuk’s shot from the high slot went wide, but the puck kicked off the backboards directly to forward Aleksander Barkov, who buried from close range for his 12th goal of the season and a 2-0 lead.

Late in the game, the Kings capped things off with an empty-net goal from Tkachuk, his third point of the night, bringing us to the final of 3-0.

Hear from defenseman Drew Doughty, forward Warren Foegele and Head Coach Jim Hiller after tonight’s defeat.

Drew Doughty

Warren Foegele
On tonight’s game and if he got the type of game he expected
Back and forth, kind of similar to last time. It’s a grind playing against these guys. They compete really hard for pucks, I played them a lot last year, so I’m pretty familiar with them. They’re a team that just wins a lot of 50/50 puck battles, whether that’s in the o-zone, neutral zone, d-zone and they win a lot of board battles. When you do that, you get possession of the puck and you’re attacking more. So they’re a good hockey club. The good thing is, quick turnaround for us and we’ll go at Tampa tomorrow.

On the margin for error right now for this team, especially against Florida
I take accountability there. Taking a penalty on the kill with nine seconds left, that just hurts our team. Two games in a row where we give up another penalty on the kill, so it’s hard to kill penalties when you’re on a 5-on-3. I put our team in a bad spot there.

On the team’s offensive output right now
It’s for sure frustrating. We’ve talked about getting bodies to the net, pucks on net. I think one thing we could do a better job is just possessing the puck a little bit better. We don’t always have to try to strike right away, let’s try to wear them down and then try to get some looks. I found tonight, just too many, just one and dones and it’s kind of been like that for a couple games right now. We have a couple good shifts where we’re really wearing them down and I think we could do more of that and then we’ll get more opportunities and stuff like that. So, it’s a grind, and we’ll get through it. Like I said, it’s good that tomorrow is a quick turnaround.

Jim Hiller
On the game tonight, compared to the 2-1 win over Florida last week at home
I thought it was similar. I thought the difference was maybe they were a little fresher this time around and maybe we weren’t as fresh. That would probably be the difference. They faster tonight than they were in LA. Still a good hockey game and they got us.

On his usage of Drew Doughty in his first game of the season
He looked fine. I mean, you don’t know until the bullets start flying, and he was fine, it looked like he didn’t miss a game to me. He was a little rusty, there was a couple, I think he bobbled it a couple times, but defensively, that’s a special player, that can be able to come in and just do that after not playing. It’s probably been close to nine months……it’s impressive. There’s a lot of things have been written and said about Drew but add that one to the list.

On not challenging the disallowed goal from Alex Laferriere
It was a tough one. Lewie went in, the guy didn’t push him in, so did he trip him in? That would be a judgment call, but when the call on the ice [is a goal] you have to have some pretty firm evidence to overturn the call on the ice. So, I mean, had it been the other way, I would have liked to seen him call the goal and let them decide which way we’re going. We just didn’t feel there was enough there to warrent taking that risk.

On if he feels like he is getting short on options to turn around the team’s offensive output
Well, I think a healthy Drew will help us that way, for sure. Some guys are getting some looks, some guys aren’t. There’s only so many things you can do. You’ve got to go out there and play hockey. They don’t give you mwuch time and space, you get 30 shots, you get some really good looks, and it doesn’t go in. We’re not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about it. We’ve dried up right now, that’s obvious, but we won’t spend time dwelling on it. Just go out there and get ready to play the next game and make sure we’re doing the things that lead to creating offense. Get in front of the goaltender is one of them. I think that’s probably the best thing you can do.

On Brandt Clarke’s healthy scratch in tonight’s game
It’s a tough, tough league for a young guy, you know what I mean? He’s done great to get to this point, he finally got to be a healthy scratch, but he’s played really well. This league will wear you down as a young player and this will give himself a reset. We’ll see where it goes from here.

Notes –
• Defenseman Drew Doughty skated in his season debut, the 1,178th regular season contest of his career. In doing so, Doughty becomes the fourth skater and only defenseman in franchise play in 17 seasons for the Kings, joining Dave Taylor (17), Dustin Brown (18) and Anze Kopitar (19).
• Doughty becomes the 13th defenseman in league history to skate in 17 seasons for a single franchise. He joins Ray Bourque (BOS, 21), Dit Clapper (BOS, 20), Ken Daneyko (NJD, 20), Nicklas Lidstrom (DET, 20), Tim Horton (TOR, 20), Kris Letang (PIT, 19), Marc-Edouard Vlasic (SJS, 19), Adam Foote (COL, 17), Brian Leetch (NYR, 17), Chris Phillips (OTT, 17), Harry Howell (NYR, 17), and Larry Robinson (MTL, 17).
• Tonight’s game marked Doughty’s 24th career game against the Panthers, breaking a tie with Dustin Brown (23GP) for sole possession of the second most meetings in franchise history, behind only Anze Kopitar (28GP).
• Goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 36 saves on 38 shots faced tonight, his highest single-game total this season and the 50th game in his career that he has recorded 36 saves or more.

The Kings will not hold a morning skate tomorrow in Tampa Bay and will return to the ice tomorrow evening at Amalie Arena against the Lightning.