Following two promising victories, the Los Angeles Kings ended their stretch of seven road games in a row with a loss last night, falling 6-1 to the Vegas Golden Knights.
First Period
The Kings had a power play opportunity about five minutes into the game, where Trevor Moore had a good chance, but couldn’t capitalize. Then shortly afterwards, Mikey Anderson had an opportunity after taking a pass on an odd-man rush, but missed wide.
A penalty for Los Angeles followed shortly afterwards though, and on the ensuing man advantage, Tomas Hertl got a couple of whacks at a puck from the slot to beat Rittich, opening the scoring for Vegas.
Then with about six minutes to go in the frame, Vegas went back to the power play off an Andre Lee penalty, and struck once again, with both Tomas Hertl and Mark Stone tipping Noah Hanifin’s point shot, to get past Rittich. Only about a minute after that with the teams back at even strength, Pavel Dorofeyev then buried a rebound in-close, quickly making it a 3-0 game.
So while the Kings actually looked good early and did carry the play at 5-on-5 at times, they found themselves in a huge hole after 20 minutes.
Second Period
We saw some good chances for the Kings in the first half of the second period, with Quinton Byfield making a nice move to get to the slot for a shot, before Brandt Clarke put a shot off the post.
However, the Kings started to find themselves hemmed in their end by about the midway mark of the frame. Despite Golden Knights carrying the play though, Los Angeles did end up with quite a bit of power play time in the back half of the frame. While on the man advantage though, Los Angeles looked out-of-sync with some missed passes, but did start to get some chances later on. Then with under a minute to go in the period, the Kings did manage to get on the board, with a shot coming back off the end boards to be buried by Warren Foegele, cutting the lead to 3-1 through two periods.
Third Period
However, Vegas quickly reinstated the three-goal lead early in the third period, with Andreas Englund turning the puck over as the forwards exited the zone, and Alexander Holtz eventually beat Rittich from the slot. Then about five minutes later, a rebound got to Tomas Hertl right in the crease, and he made it a 5-1 game.
Vegas wasn’t done there, as Ivan Barbashev finished off a nice passing play down low about five minutes after that when too many Kings’ players were caught puck watching, allowing the Golden Knights to cruise to the 6-1 win.
Takeaways
The loss marks the third time in seven games that the Kings have given up at least six goals.
It’s a bit of a one-step forward, one-step back situation for Los Angeles right now. They looked like they may be breaking out of a tough stretch with their wins over Montreal and Anaheim, only to crumble against a tougher opponent in Vegas.
Part of it is a result of some of their established pieces just not playing up to their abilities. Kevin Fiala has just two even strength points thus far, and has gone huge stretches without really carrying the puck much. Then while Quinton Byfield continues to be one of the team’s better puck transporters, he’s not getting the results.
Phillip Danault and Trevor Moore continue to underperform as well. The duo have been so effective at both ends of the ice over much of the last few years with the Kings, but continue struggling to make much of an impact right now. Jim Hiller has tried throwing the lines into a blender, but the Foegele-Turcotte-Laferriere trio continues to be the only consistent performers.
At the same time, I also think we can recognize that part of their issues over this stretch have simply been a result of icing a weaker team. Defensively, the Kings are down their top two right-side defenders from last year, in the injured Drew Doughty and the departed Matt Roy. As a result, Mikey Anderson and Vladislav Gavrikov are basically being counted on to stabilize the group, while Brandt Clarke and Jordan Spence are taking on even larger roles than anticipated.
Last night, the major issue was around losing puck battles around the net. Most of the goals against were a result of players being left alone to get to a puck, or being given too much time and space. David Rittich also wasn’t great, allowing six goals on 30 shots, but he didn’t get a ton of help.
Ultimately, I don’t think the score represents the flow of the game, given it wasn’t as lopsided as the 6-1 final would suggest. It also marks the end to seven-straight road games to open the year, and a 3-2-2 record from that stretch isn’t too bad.
But the Kings continue to have issues with their consistency, and the loss quickly erases any thought that the concerns raised over the Ottawa/Toronto games were overblown. Los Angeles will be back in action tomorrow night, when they face the San Jose Sharks.
OTHER ARTICLES FROM OCTOBER
- Are the Kings destined to be a middle-of-the-pack team this season?
- Darcy Kuemper shines as Kings sneak out win over Sabres in season opener
- Kings come up short against Bruins, fall 2-1 in overtime
- Kings suffer OT loss to Senators in wild 15-goal game
- Kings fall behind early, give up six goals in loss to Maple Leafs
- Kings take down Canadiens to snap three-game skid
- Kings put forth another strong effort in win over Ducks
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