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The Los Angeles Kings dropped the first game of their seven-game homestand after the holiday break, losing 6-3 to the Vegas Golden Knights tonight.
Alex Turcotte made his NHL debut, playing on a line with Trevor Moore and Viktor Arvidsson, while Drew Doughty also returned from COVID protocol.
After a very slow first 10 minutes of the game, we got a ridiculous sequence of four goals in 76 seconds around the halfway point of the first period First, Vegas opened the scoring on a power play, as Jonathan Marchessault found Reilly Smith in front, who tipped the puck past Jonathan Quick. Then just after that, Ben Hutton took a point shot that got through traffic and deflected in off Keegan Kolesar to make it a 2-0 game.
Adrian Kempe would cut the lead in half right away, as he chased down a puck bouncing off the end boards and one-timed a shot past Laurent Brossoit. However, Vegas extended their lead right back to two goals after that, as Jonathan Marchessault followed up on an initial shot from William Karlsson that hit the post and he deked Quick to make it 3-1 for the Golden Knights, which was how the game stood after 20 minutes. It definitely wasn’t a great opening period for the Kings, as Vegas had several quality chances to bury a few more goals than the three they came away with.
The Golden Knights started to run away with the game early in the second period, as Nicolas Roy got a pass to Chandler Stephenson on a power play and he one-timed a shot past Quick to make it 4-1 Vegas. Then just after that, Mattias Janmark tipped in a point shot to extend the lead to 5-1 and that would be it for Quick, as Garret Sparks entered the game in relief.
The Kings got a goal back later in the period on the penalty kill, as Matt Roy lobbed a great pass to Trevor Moore and he put a puck through Brossoit. Los Angeles built some momentum on a power play after that and created some great chances but couldn’t capitalize and the score remained 5-2 heading into the second intermission.
Vegas added to their lead early in the third period, as Marchessault capitalized on a turnover from Drew Doughty and put the puck through Sparks to make it a four-goal margin once again. Alex Iafallo pulled the game back to 6-3 a few minutes later, taking a pass and beating Brossoit with a nice wrist shot but that’s as close as the Kings would come.
The Kings had a rough night and gave up way too many quality chances through the first half of the game. They had a much better second half of the outing but couldn’t recover from sloppy mistakes early on.
I thought Turcotte’s debut was pretty decent overall. He didn’t look out of place and made a lot of the little plays right but he might have lacked a bit of confidence. There was one play in the third period where he used his speed to chase down a puck but then seemingly couldn’t decide what to do with it and a defender caught up and broke up the play. We know he’s going to be a key piece with the team down the road though and it was great to see him get into NHL action.
The Kings’ next game will come on Thursday against the Vancouver Canucks.
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