After a 1-0 loss Wednesday and lots of time to think about it, both before and after, this being their only game in the work week, the LA Kings faced off against the Seattle Kraken, who had an equal amount of time to think about a 3-0 win against the Nashville Predators. This face off took place at 1pm on Saturday afternoon, and from the start, the game wasn’t what you would have expected, especially from a home team looking to recoup after being shut out.
The Kings were deficient in both offense and defense, and while nobody scored during the first period, LA was outshot, 5-4. But the play was more lopsided than that. You know how players who get beaten say that the other team “came out hard on the forecheck?” This wasn’t that. The Kraken rarely got in and crashed on the Kings. Instead, they just carried the play, and the puck, directly into the LA Zone. They drove forward, gaining the blue line with almost no challenge.
Can’t you just hear Coach Jim Hiller in the locker room between periods? “This just isn’t good enough.” Except delivered with incredible force and maybe a little bit of spit flying. Fans who braved the trip downtown knowing that the Auto Show was at the Convention Center next door, which would make for a nightmare parking situation, must have been cheesed off. As someone on the NHL Network said this week (perhaps they say it every week), “If you’re rebuilding, the least fans expect is effort at home.” Forget the rebuilding part and you’ve got an imperative for the Kings: never let down at home.
Did the Kings come out in P2 with resolve? They did, with Kopitar flying down the left side and actually choosing to shoot as he came off the wing. He appeared to be shooting for a rebound, actually. Nobody picked up the puck lying on the ice after smacking goalie Joey Daccord in the middle of the crest.
The Kings took less than five minutes to pot their first goal. Turcotte fed Kempe with a pass from the goal line to the high slot. Kempe launched a rising wrist shot that seemed to find its way past a myriad of obstacles, including two Seattle players and the goalie, and into the open side. Open? Not to normal eyes; it was one of those gaps that reveal themselves to pure goal scorers, which Kempe is. This was his tenth goal of the year. One must note that the Seattle players were caught looking on the play, four of them turning around to chase from Turcotte to Kempe, but none close enough to be effective.
“Low event hockey” indeed—a lot of indecisive play punctuated with less than two minutes of scoring action on the part of the Kings.
The Kings did it again as they passed five minutes and were on the power play. They had been zero for five on PP against Buffalo. This one was a beautiful one-timer by Quinton Byfield from the low right side on one knee. Kopitar assisted on this goal, as he had on the first one. Byfield was in his 200th NHL game, believe it or not. It seems like yesterday that he was drafted. It was actually 2020 (first round, second overall). Byfield seems to have perspective on things. “There’s been a lot of ups and downs, injuries, illnesses, so it was tough. … A lot of challenging moments in those 200 games, but to come across it still 22, still young …” is affirming.
One more note on the second period: there was an interesting mirroring of two plays, one on each end. First Seattle sent two guys down the ice, passing, passing, and more passing for a tic-tac-toe chance that the forward missed and saw go behind the net. Then the Kings, shorthanded, had Warren Foegele and Byfield rush down two-on-none, passing, passing, twice more passing, and getting nothing out of the play.
In the third, Seattle pushed, as you would expect, and they scored, late (18:26 of the third) to break Dave Rittich’s shutout. Kevin Fiala commented on the lost shutout after the game: “Too bad he couldn’t get the shutout here, but [it] doesn’t matter. We feel very comfortable with him in back. … Right now, he’s on top of his game.” Doesn’t matter to you, but to Rittich?
Seattle outshot the Kings 8-5 in the third but were edged out, 21-20, in the game overall. The Kraken’s Brandon Montour put a positive spin on P3: “The last period, the last 15 … minutes, obviously, we took it to them.” He described his team’s effort further: “We’re creating chances, I hit a post, the game could have [gone] a completely different way.”
Coulda, shoulda, the score was 2-1. Seattle now heads to Anaheim for a Monday night game, while the Kings fly to San Jose on the same day to play the somewhat rejuvenated Sharks.
