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Quick dominates but Kings lacking in 3-2 OT loss |
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Jonathan Quick stole a point for the Los Angeles Kings as they dropped a 3-2 decision in overtime to their newfound rivals, the Vegas Golden Knights.
Quick stopped 36 of 39 shots, including 14 in the second period, in order to give the Kings a chance to win the game and try to keep pace with the Golden Knights in the standings.
However, after numerous chances by both teams in overtime, David Perron snapped a strong wristshot past Quick’s stick side to end the game.
“[We] probably got a point we shouldn’t have had,” said John Stevens. “We can be thankful for that, but let’s not pat ourselves on the back here.”
“[This is] probably my most disappointing game this year in terms of not trying to establish a game plan.”
The game started off innocent enough. The Golden Knights and the Kings spend the first half of the first period feeling each other out before Marian Gaborik deflected a Derek Forbort shot past Marc-Andre Fleury to get the early 1-0 lead.
At that point Vegas turned on their jets and the reliance on Quick began. The Golden Knight’s ability to run three scoring lines made it almost impossible for the Kings to transition from defense to offense, thus pinned them in the defensive zone.
Quick, to his credit, gave Vegas fits by stonewalling them from the second half of the first period all the way to the end of the second period. It wasn’t until there was a minute and a half left in the second when Jonathan Marchessault managed to smack the puck past Quick, despite two incredible saves on his doorstep to tie the game.
The pattern continued into the third period as the Golden Knights were all over the Kings in the third period. Vegas eventually took a 2-1 lead halfway through the third when Brendan Leipsic snapped up a rebound and put it past Quick.
Up until there were five minutes left in the third, the Kings had yet to get a power play. Part of the reason for that is when a team is hemmed in their own zone, it’s more likely that team will receive a penalty than the attacking team.
LA got lucky when Perron took an interference penalty 200 feet from his own net to finally get some built in offensive zone time. Despite not scoring on that power play, the Kings got enough zone time to allow Jake Muzzin’s pass be deflected by Drew Doughty past Fleury and eventually send the game to overtime.
“We got lucky when we got the point,” said Doughty after the game. [Quick] had to obviously play well again, they outshot us by a pretty big margin, and we had a really, really bad second period.”
“In some ways, I don’t even think we deserved a point. We’re obviously kind of lucky and happy now that we got it, but that wasn’t a very good performance by us.”
One of the bright spots for the Kings in this game was the effectiveness of their NHL best penalty kill. The Kings killed off five Vegas power play opportunities and are now at 87.0% effective on the penalty kill.
However, when a team spends a lot of the game killing penalties, it doesn’t give a lot of opportunities to do anything else.
“It kills your top guys, it’s very taxing,” explained Stevens. “It’s taxing on top guys when you get in the box that much, and it’s taxing on guys when you’re in there as much as we were in the second period.”
“Vegas has a good power play and they get momentum from it. Even when they don’t score, they get momentum from it.”
A key factor going into this game was the fact that the Kings were coming off a four day break while Vegas had played the night before against Anaheim. That scenario has positive or negative attributes depending on how someone looks it at.
Either the Kings were rested after the break, or rusty after sitting for so long. Vegas was either tired from playing the night before or they shook off the rust and found their legs.
Doughty believes it is the latter when it comes to Vegas’ situation.
“They kind of had the advantage tonight, if you ask me,” said Doughty. “They played last night and after that four/three day break it’s nice to get a game under your belt.”
“I felt that we were a little sluggish for the first two periods. You make turnovers they get chances out of it but there’s no way they’re going to be a better team than us by the end of the season.
Thems fighting words by the star defenseman but the Kings are going to have to prove it starting with Saturday’s game against the Canucks in Vancouver. Earlier this season the Canucks defeated the Kings at the Staples Center 3-2 and are coming off a strong 5-2 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday.
After Vancouver, the Kings continue to travel into Western Canada on Tuesday to face the Edmonton Oilers who are also finding their stride after struggling to start the season.
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
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