The LA Kings suffered their most lopsided defeat of the season, as they fell to the Edmonton Oilers by an 8-1 final on Thursday evening at Crypto.com Arena. <\/p>\n
The Oilers opened the scoring 7:25 into the game as the Kings continued yesterday\u2019s theme of allowing goals in transition. Edmonton attacked 3-on-2, moving into the offensive zone with possession. Passes from Jack Roslovic and Matt Savoie were well executed as defenseman Ty Emberson took the final feed in the right-hand circle and buried a shot high on the glove side for his second goal of the season and an early 1-0 advantage. <\/p>\n
Less than 60 seconds later, Edmonton doubled its advantage by once again capitalizing in transition. The Oilers gained the offensive zone with possession, as forward Andrew Mangiapane gained the zone and fed forward Vasily Podkolzin attacking down the left wing. Podkolzin worked his way into the left-hand circle and fired from a sharp angle, past Kings netminder Darcy Kuemper and in for the 2-0 lead. <\/p>\n
Just over 12 minutes into the opening period, the Kings pulled a goal back, with a simple formula. After Edmonton was unable to clear the puck up the boards, defenseman Joel Edmundson held the zone at the left point and shot the puck towards the net, with forward Warren Foegele getting a deflection on the way through, sending it past Oilers goaltender Connor Ingram to pull the Kings back within 2-1. <\/p>\n
Edmonton added two goals goals in less than two minutes early in the second period to blow open the game at 4-1.<\/p>\n
First, the Oilers scored again off the rush, as defenseman Jake Walman worked his way into the left-hand circle and snapped a shot past Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper on the glove side, his sixth tally of the season. Forward Connor McDavid then made it 4-1 as he drew Kuemper out of the net, wrapped around the back of the goal shot top shelf from the far side, as the visitors pulled ahead by three.<\/p>\n
After the fourth goal, the Kings made a goaltending change, with goaltender Anton Forsberg replacing Kuemper. <\/p>\n
Edmonton made it 5-1 with a power-play goal before the halfway mark of the middle stanza. Skating on their first man advantage of the night, Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl fired a shot off the endboards, wide of the net, but the puck kicked back into the slot, where forward Zach Hyman whacked it past Forsberg, into the back of the net, to extend the lead to four goals.<\/p>\n
The Oilers added three more goals in the third period, bringing us to the final score of 8-1. Draisaitl had a hand in all three goals, including the sixth of the evening for his team, a power-play goal 31 seconds into the third period, to put the visitors up by five. Draisaitl then collected primary assists on a pair of goals by defenseman Jake Walman, closing out the most lopsided defeat of the season. <\/p>\n
Hear from forward Anze Kopitar, defenseman Mikey Anderson and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight\u2019s defeat. <\/p>\n
Anze Kopitar<\/p>\n
Mikey Anderson
On if he feels as if the Kings have quit on the coaching staff
I think everyone in here, we\u2019re a group. Everyone\u2019s trying to pull our weight. Obviously, we come out of a break, feeling fresh and as a group of players in here, we didn\u2019t do enough to get points. Obviously, everyone\u2019s got a piece of the puzzle, but I don\u2019t think guys have quit on anybody. It\u2019s a group in here. It may not always seem like it from the outside but we\u2019ve got a good group of guys here, guys that want to be here. A game like today, just unfortunate. Comes down to us, though. We\u2019ve got to be better in division games that are really important right now. <\/p>\n
On where he feels the biggest breakdowns were defensively over these two games
Yeah, I think it\u2019s a mix of everything. You see some of the goals today come off the rush. I don\u2019t know what we gave up, three or four shorthanded goals, they\u2019re coming from all over. That\u2019s something we needed, we\u2019re good at, we need to be good at. Unfortunately,we haven\u2019t been for the last two. <\/p>\n
On why the optimism coming out of the break hasn\u2019t translated into these games
I think everyone came back, everyone was energetic, you\u2019re ready excited to play. Everyone\u2019s in the same boat, you\u2019ve got to try and get your engine going. For whatever reason, we just haven\u2019t been as sharp as the teams we\u2019re playing. That\u2019s the result we\u2019re getting. <\/p>\n
On what needs to change over these final 24 games to salvage the season
These two games were really important with division teams. You get on a stretch, everyone can catch fire. I know we have a group in here that can do it. It\u2019s just showing up. We need to give that effort every game, find a way to get points. Now we\u2019ve got, you said 24 games, we\u2019ve got to win who knows how many of them? It doesn\u2019t matter how they come. We just lost these two, so it\u2019s just two games we can\u2019t lose later on. <\/p>\n
Jim Hiller
On if he is concerned with his job status following tonight\u2019s defeat
My focus is trying to win on Saturday. We sign up for this job. I think you\u2019re probably always concerned when you\u2019ve got a job in the coaching world, so that\u2019s just something that\u2019s always tucked away. But, what overrides all that is trying to get your team to win games.<\/p>\n
On his biggest concern after a defeat like this
Well, we got smacked tonight. Tonight was a smacking, there\u2019s no denying that. So, my greatest concern is, how can we pick ourselves back up and have energy and come in a positive frame of mind and win on Saturday. There\u2019s some stuff underneath that and behind that, that we\u2019ll have to do, but that\u2019s my biggest concern is to make sure the group is ready and energized. Listen, we didn\u2019t feel good tonight. I don\u2019t feel good standing here. Those players don\u2019t feel good today. We\u2019ve got a job to do come Saturday and we\u2019ve got to go win a game and get this thing turned the other way. My concern and my energy will be trying to get them in the frame of mind to do that. <\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s biggest strength being defending and giving up 14 goals in 2 games
This one got ugly. This one got really ugly. I thought we battled back in first period, despite the two early goals. We had some energy, we had some opportunity. To me, the real turning point was not being able to get one on that power play. That, to me, was an important part of the game and then it just got away from us after that and we didn\u2019t\u2026\u2026well, you saw it. <\/p>\n
On his belief in turning the season around over the final 24 games
Got a couple injuries that probably slowed us a little bit but I believe in our team. I really do. I have said this since maybe six, seven games of the season, when people are asking, we are going to get on a run and win six or seven, eight games in a row. I know it. I know our team is good enough to do that. It\u2019s been an odd year for whatever reasons that way. I\u2019m positive and optimistic that\u2019s still going to happen.<\/p>\n
On if he has any updates on Drew Doughty or Joel Armia and if anything came back with those players from the Olympics
No, and I can\u2019t update you. I know they\u2019re just in the back, and [Head Athletic Trainer Chris Kingsley was talking to Ken] no, but there\u2019s a lot of wear and tear on those Olympic players who get over there and play. Then there\u2019s the travel that goes with it too, just the emotions. I think there\u2019s been times when those players have come back and had a harder time staying healthy. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Forward Warren Foegele (1-0=1) scored his seventh goal of the season tonight, marking his eighth point (3-5=8) in 10 career games played against his former team, the Edmonton Oilers.
\u2013 Defenseman Joel Edmundson (0-1=1) registered his 15th assist of the season tonight, the second most assists by a Kings blueliner this year behind his defense partner, Brandt Clarke (22 A).
\u2013 With tonight\u2019s helper, Edmundson sets a new single-season career high in the category, surpassing the previous personal best (14 A) he established last season.
\u2013 Defenseman Drew Doughty played his 1,257th career regular-season NHL game this evening, breaking a three-way tie with Duncan Keith (1,256 GP) and Craig Ludwig (1,256 GP) for sole possession of the 29th most games played by a defenseman in NHL history.<\/p>\n
The Kings have a scheduled day off tomorrow, following the back-to-back. The team will return to the ice on Saturday, as they host the Calgary Flames at 4 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings suffered their most lopsided defeat of the season, as they fell to the Edmonton Oilers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-507401","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\/507401","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=507401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}