The Kings never found their footing in a 3-0 loss to the Predators, a night that followed a familiar script in Los Angeles. Once again, the start was slow, the deficit came early, and by the time the Kings tried to crank up the pressure, Nashville had already built too much of a cushion.
Filip Forsberg did the damage for the Predators, scoring the first two goals of the game. Nilis Hoglander set up both of those tallies, and Nashville’s second line dictated the pace from the jump, putting Los Angeles in a hole it couldn’t climb out of.
The Kings did show more life in the third period, but it was too late to change the outcome. Scott Laughton pointed to that late push as proof of what the team needs from the opening faceoff.
“We had urgency in the third, and you see what happens [when] we played with pace, and we get pucks on net, we recover them,” Scott Laughton said. “Obviously, we didn’t score, so not good enough. We need to have that urgency from the get-go.”
That urgency was missing for most of the night. Los Angeles struggled to build anything clean in the offensive zone, with passes not connecting and chances slipping away before they could turn into dangerous looks. Adrian Kempe said the Kings couldn’t string together the kind of possession they needed.
“Whenever we had the puck, we couldn’t connect on one or two passes in the o-zone," Adrian Kempe said. “Without the puck, I thought they were quicker, faster to loose pucks and won more battles than we did.”
The passing problems showed up in the shot totals, too. Through two periods, the Kings managed only 15 shots on goal, a number that reflected how often they stalled out before getting to the net. In the third, they added 15 more, but that surge came from desperation rather than sustained pressure.
Coach Laviolette said Nashville’s neutral-zone pressure kept Los Angeles from ever settling in.
“Just pressing us in the neutral zone and that’s where the passes became a little bit sloppy, said Coach Laviolette. “We didn’t connect, we weren’t able to get through clean and get into the offensive zone,”
Nashville, meanwhile, attacked with purpose from the start. The Predators were willing to shoot, willing to push, and that aggression created the odd-man rushes that turned into goals.
“The odd man rushes five or so in the first period, three or so in the second, said you give up eight odd man rushes in the first two periods. It’s not going to end well,” Coach Laviolette said.
For the Kings, it was another loss built on the same old issues: a flat opening, sloppy puck movement, and an offense that didn’t show up until the game was already slipping away. Until that changes, nights like this are going to keep piling up.
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Kings Suddenly Have A Blue Line Concern As Zuccarello Heats Up
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Mats Zuccarello, meanwhile, is starting to look more like himself after a rough opening stretch, and coach Peter Laviolette singled out his play from the previous game. For a Kings team trying to settle its lineup and stay steady on the back end, getting a veteran forward moving in the right direction matters, especially when the defense is already dealing with uncertainty. [Read more 🡒]