The LA Kings once again found a way to collect a point but were unable to collect the second one, as they dropped a 2-1 overtime decision against the Boston Bruins on Friday evening at Crypto.com Arena. <\/p>\n
The first two periods came and went without a goal in either direction. The Kings had the best chance from the first period, with 70 seconds of 5-on-3 time, but they were unable to convert early. Both teams had their chances in the second period, with several shots hitting the post at both ends of the ice, but neither team was able to put the puck in the back of the net. <\/p>\n
After nearly 50 minutes without a goal for either side, Boston\u2019s Morgan Geekie opened the scoring with a rocket of a shot to put the visitors ahead. On a one-timer, Geekie took the pass from forward Alex Steeves and hammered it first time, over the right shoulder of Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper and in, for his team-leading 15th goal of the season and a 1-0 lead for the Bruins. <\/p>\n
With the Kings skating a man down, they found a way to tie the game as forward Joel Armia scored a shorthanded goal for the second straight night to equalize at a goal apiece. Forward Trevor Moore led the rush the other way and after his shot was stopped by Boston goaltender Jeremy Swayman, Armia crashed the net and got a stick on the rebound, as he buried his fifth goal of the season to force the game into overtime.<\/p>\n
With the game in overtime, Boston collected the extra point as Geekie scored his second goal of the evening. A stretch pass found Bruins forward David Pastrnak, who gained the offensive zone with possession. Pastrnak delayed and fed Geekie joining the rush, who fired inside the far post and in for the game-winning goal. <\/p>\n
Hear from Moore, forward Anze Kopitar and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
Trevor Moore<\/p>\n
Anze Kopitar
On the flow of tonight\u2019s game, playing against a similar, stylistic team
It\u2019s almost playing against yourself, you know? We were just trying to exploit the weaknesses. I thought it was obviously a hard-fought game. They have a big, strong lineup and it was a physical game. We got the one point, but we\u2019re not satisfied with that. We\u2019ll try to get back on track on Monday. <\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s mentality when going down a goal
You\u2019re down a goal, so you\u2019re one play away from tying it up, so there\u2019s certainly no need to panic. Just keep on going, keep on plugging away and eventually we got the tying goal. <\/p>\n
On what he feels needs to improve on the power play
I mean, we\u2019re getting chances. Last night, we got some good chances, tonight we got some good chances, so just keep on battling, keep on going. Maybe try and simplify a little bit, try to get more stuff to the net and create off of that, and just work at it. <\/p>\n
On if he feels like just getting one to go could open things up
That\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for. We\u2019ve got to get the first one and just go from there. <\/p>\n
Jim Hiller
On his assessment right now of the power play
Overall, execution. On the 5-on-3, they had one good block on Juice\u2019s first shot and then Kuzy found him through the seam on the second one, good save. Yeah, just not good enough. Not good enough execution.<\/p>\n
On the five-forward look with Adrian Kempe playing at the point
Well, I think the power play has struggled in general, so I\u2019m not going to single one guy out, but I think the group of five of them clearly are not getting it done as constructed. We\u2019ve talked about it a few times, so that\u2019s something we\u2019re thinking about and it doesn\u2019t look good. It\u2019s cost us games. So, when you get to that point, at some point, you might have to make some changes.<\/p>\n
On the frustration of a thriving penalty kill, compared to a struggling power play
I think we went through that for the most part last season, until Kuzy arrived. Then, we really got going when Juice went on the point in the last four or five games of the season and then into the playoffs, so, that\u2019s when the power play was at its best, it was one of the best in the league from the trade deadline on. So you say, well, it doesn\u2019t make sense. Well, it\u2019s clearly not going now, so there probably has to be some changes made. <\/p>\n
On who else he might see as a power-play option at the point, if he moved Clarke to the top unit
Yeah, that\u2019s a good question. I think when you look at it, Dewey and Clarkie are the two, power-play D that you have here right now. So that poses a bit of a problem. <\/p>\n
On the shorthanded goal tonight and Joel Armia\u2019s read to get the goal
You would have expected to get one on the power play, right? You\u2019re not trying to expect to get one on the penalty kill, which has been very good lately, we\u2019ve shut teams down. That\u2019s just a really big moment, you know? Army saw the play develop and he jumped up to join Mooresie. Sometimes on a penalty kill, late you\u2019ve got to score, but sometimes you just defer, you go off the ice, or you shoot the puck down. In that moment, they went for it and got a good result.<\/p>\n
On the defensive pairing changes, swapping Edmundson and Dumoulin
I did [like what I saw], yeah I did. We wanted to try to hard match them against Pastrnak\u2019s line and I thought they did a really good job as a pair, a little bit like Mikey and Gavy did last year, with Eddie on the right. They did their job.<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Forward Joel Armia (1-0=1) scored his League-leading third shorthanded goal (SHG) of the season, his tenth point of the season (5-5=10). Armia now has 20 career shorthanded goals following tonight\u2019s tally after notching his 19th career man- down marker last night in San Jose. He is the fifth active skater to record 20 such tallies.
\u2013 Per NHL PR, Armia is the fourth Kings player since 2000-01 to score a shorthanded goal in consecutive games, following Trevor Moore (2 GP in 2021-22), Mike Richards (2 GP in 2011-12) and Ziggy Palffy (2 GP in 2000-01). No player in franchise history has extended his streak to three games.
\u2013 The native of Pori, Finland, also joined Steve Duchesne (2 GP from Nov. 22-23, 1988) and Bernie Nicholls (2 GP from Dec. 5-6, 1987) as the third player in franchise history to score a shorthanded goal in consecutive days.
\u2013 Armia has contributed three of the Kings\u2019 five shorthanded goals through the first 22 games of his debut season in Los Angeles. Only the New York Islanders (5 SHG) have scored as many goals as the Kings on the penalty kill this season.
\u2013 Forward Trevor Moore (0-1=1) picked up his fourth assist of the season on Armia\u2019s tally. The assist stands as his 15th career shorthanded point (12-3=15) as a member of the Kings, tying Tony Granato (5-10=15) for the ninth most in franchise history.
\u2013 Moore\u2019s assist also breaks a tie with teammate Adrian Kempe (11-3=14) for sole possession of the most shorthanded points by a Kings skater since the former\u2019s debut with the team on Feb. 8, 2020.
\u2013 Defenseman Brian Dumoulin (0-1=1) notched his third helper of the campaign, his first shorthanded point as a member of the Kings. With the assist, Dumoulin (1-8=9) ties Brayden McNabb (2-7=9) for the third-most shorthanded points among defenseman selected in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft, trailing only Mattias Ekholm (4-9=13), and Victor Hedman (1- 13=14).
\u2013 Forward Corey Perry played in his 1,408th career regular season contest tonight, breaking a tie with Dale Hunter (1,407 GP) for sole possession of the 43rd-most appearances by a skater in NHL history. Perry also reached 1,500 career PIMs tonight, becoming the second active skater to reach the mark, joining Washington\u2019s Tom Wilson (1,579 PIMs).<\/p>\n
The Kings have a scheduled day off tomorrow, following the back-to-back, and will return to the ice for practice on Sunday, November 23 at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings once again found a way to collect a point but were unable to collect the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-301272","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}