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The Los Angeles Kings lost the first game of their four-game road trip yesterday, falling 4-3 to the Dallas Stars.
The Kings opened the scoring about four minutes in, as Trevor Moore capitalized on a turnover and got the puck out to Phillip Danault, who beat Jake Oettinger with a nice shot. The Stars really started to take over though and controlled the majority of the first frame, though Los Angeles managed to hang onto the lead through 20 minutes.
The second period was much more action-packed, though not necessarily in the Kings’ favour. Dallas managed to tie the game at the start of the second period though, with Luke Glendening putting a shot past Cal Petersen. Despite the Kings being outshot in the frame 22-11 overall, Arthur Kaliyev was key, scoring a nice shot after entering the zone to put Los Angeles back up, then later wiring a slapshot past Oettinger on a power play to give Los Angeles a two goal lead.
The Stars responded quickly though, with Jason Robertson delaying on a 2-on-1 and scoring to cut the lead to one. Then with under a minute to go, Ryan Suter stepped into a slapshot and beat Petersen from a distance to tie the game. Just as it looked like the game would be even heading into the second intermission, Alexander Radulov got to a bounce off the boards and scored on a power play, and Dallas had a lead.
The Kings tried to even it up again in the third period, but didn’t manage a ton of high-danger chances. They were outshot 11-10 in the period and fell 4-3.
The blown lead hurts and while the Kings weren’t really in control through much of the game, stretches of the second period were pretty rough. They gave Dallas five power plays, were outshot 43-31, and it wasn’t necessarily the performance you want to see after the bad home loss against the Boston Bruins.
It was great to see Arthur Kaliyev scoring and having a really strong game overall though. The fact that he’s on pace for 17 goals per 82 games as a 20-year-old rookie playing bottom-six minutes is impressive.
Given how tight the Western Conference is, the Kings have already dropped back to eighth in the Conference in points percentage. Their next game comes on Friday against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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