The LA Kings dropped their fourth straight game, their third consecutive loss in overtime, as they dropped a 2-1 final on Saturday evening at Honda Center in Anaheim. <\/p>\n
Just over six minutes into the game, Anaheim opened the scoring through forward Mason McTavish. After a quick regroup in the neutral zone, the Ducks attacked the other way off the rush, led by defenseman Owen Zellweger. Zellweger worked the puck to his left, to McTavish with space, and the Ducks forward fired inside the far post, past Kings netminder Anton Forsberg, for his 12th goal of the season and the early 1-0 advantage. <\/p>\n
After two Anaheim penalties just six seconds apart, the Kings were handed a massive lifeline in the second period and took advantage with a 5-on-3 power-play goal. Forward Kevin Fiala worked his way to the center point and as he delayed, drawing attention to him, he worked the puck to forward Adrian Kempe in the right-hand circle, where he buried his 16th goal of the season to tie the game at one. <\/p>\n
Inside 60 seconds to play in overtime, Anaheim found the game-winning goal to secure the weekend sweep. Ducks forward Beckett Sennecke chased down Fiala on a breakaway at one end of the ice, before turning things around the other way on a 2-on-1 rush. Anaheim forward Mikael Granlund kept the puck himself and fired underneath the crossbar and in for a 2-1 victory, the fourth straight defeat for the Kings in total.<\/p>\n
Hear from defenseman Brandt Clarke, forward Warren Foegele and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
Brandt Clarke<\/p>\n
Warren Foegele
On what is missing for this team after another defeat
I don\u2019t know if I have an answer to that, to be honest, because if I did, I don\u2019t think we would keep being in the same situation every game. At the end of the day, we didn\u2019t get the job done. We didn\u2019t get the two points. Just not good enough. <\/p>\n
On the critical nature of the games this weekend in the playoff race
We didn\u2019t get the two points yesterday and we didn\u2019t get the two points tonight. For everyone, there\u2019s so much parody in this league, points are crucial, and we didn\u2019t get the job done.<\/p>\n
On if there was anything he did like from tonight\u2019s game
I thought our special teams was\u2026\u2026we won the special teams battle. I thought for Forsy was unreal. I don\u2019t know, it\u2019s been the same story kind of all year. But yeah, special teams we won today and Forsberg. <\/p>\n
On Anton Forsberg\u2019s play tonight in getting the game into overtime
It helps us break the puck out a little bit easier, when he\u2019s moving it. It\u2019s almost like having 3D back there. He was sharp today. He made some great saves and he played really well. <\/p>\n
On what the Kings need to do going forward to get things back on track
Staying together. This group, we compete every night for each other and it\u2019s kudos to the group to still battle and not get\u2026\u2026I know obviously guys are frustrated, but we\u2019re staying with it together. The only way we\u2019re going to get out of this is doing it together and trying to play the right way and hopefully get some bounces our way. This group battles every single night and that\u2019s the frustrating thing, is because the effort is there, it\u2019s just we haven\u2019t been able to get the results that we\u2019d like. <\/p>\n
Jim Hiller
On tonight\u2019s effort compared to last night\u2019s performance
I thought we were better yesterday. I thought we were poor in the first period and I thought Sammy Helenius, that to me was a wake-up call for our players. A great job by Sammy and he\u2019s always willing to do that for himself or his team. I think he realized the moment and his team needed that. I don\u2019t know if that woke some guys up and they felt like maybe I better get some physically involved in this hockey game. It was a great job by him. <\/p>\n
On the performance from Anton Forsberg tonight
Forsy\u2019s played well for a while. It took him a little time to settle into the team but if you look at his body of work over the last couple months, you have to be nothing but impressed. I thought the two saves he made on the the penalty kill late there, those were obviously a chance for us to come back and win the game, so those were really important. He just looked solid. He moved the puck, he was very poised, so it looks like he\u2019s getting really comfortable.<\/p>\n
On his assessment of the power play tonight
We had the puck in their zone. I didn\u2019t think we executed well at all. I mean, that\u2019s a nice 5-on-3, goal, that\u2019s a high level of execution, but outside of that, I didn\u2019t think we executed. We didn\u2019t generate enough rubber at the net. We had some shots that went wide, that were blocked, some high tips, but no, we didn\u2019t attack inside enough. So, if there was a chance for us to win the game, that would have been it. We didn\u2019t execute.<\/p>\n
On what they were looking at post-game after the game-winning goal
It was on LaCombe\u2019s shot down the wing, the puck got deflected, may have hit the netting, but the puck comes back out of the zone, once it clears, it resets that, so it\u2019s a moot point after that. <\/p>\n
On what he\u2019d like to see the Kings do going forward
It\u2019s not good enough. We talked about that, so we were playing well, but obviously it\u2019s not well enough. So, where are the other areas that we can improve? Where can one individual player, can he block one more shot? Can one guy win one more faceoff? You saw Laf stroke those two faceoffs, these are individuals. You\u2019ve got to do more, because what we\u2019re doing isn\u2019t enough. That\u2019s clear. That falls on everyone, coaches included. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) scored his 16th goal of the season, his seventh point (2-5=7) of the year earned on the man-advantage. Kempe\u2019s 37 points (16-21=37) lead all Kings skaters. Since Kempe\u2019s first full NHL season in 2017-18, he has accumulated a League-leading 15 goals and 21 points (15-6=21) at Honda Center. In total, the 29-year-old has posted 36 points (18-18=36) in 41 career Freeway Faceoff contests.
\u2013 With his tally tonight, Kempe is now tied with Alex Debrincat (18 G in 20 GP) and Patrick Kane (18 G in 54 GP) for the fifth most goals scored against the Ducks by any active skater, while his 36 points are now tied with Tomas Hertl (12- 24=36 in 48 GP) for the 11th most points against the Orange County Club by any active player.
\u2013 Forward Kevin Fiala (0-1=1) notched his 17th assist of the season, tying defenseman Brandt Clarke (17 A) for the third most among LA Kings skaters. Fiala has now recorded 29 points (20-9=29) in 31 career games played against the Anaheim Ducks.
\u2013 Fiala\u2019s assist marked his 92nd career power play point in a Kings uniform (36-56=92), breaking a three-way tie with Larry Murphy (22-69=91) and Jimmy Carson (45-46=91) for 23rd most power play points by an LA King all-time.
\u2013 Forward Andrei Kuzmenko (0-1=1) recorded his 10th helper of the season on Kempe\u2019s goal, the 95th assist of his career. In 13 career games against the Anaheim Ducks, the native of Yakutsk, Russia, has recorded 16 points (10-6=16), which ranks as the 19th highest points per game (1.23 P\/GP) average against the Ducks in NHL history (min. 10 GP).<\/p>\n
The Kings have a scheduled day off tomorrow and will return to the ice on Monday, January 19 for practice at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings dropped their fourth straight game, their third consecutive loss in overtime, as they dropped a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-421371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421371","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=421371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}