The Los Angeles Kings finally got the breakthrough they’d been hunting, and they did it by flipping both ends of the game in Washington.
Coming in with six straight losses and four consecutive one-goal nights, the Kings found a much-needed offensive burst Tuesday and rode it to a 5-2 win over the Capitals. The victory snapped their opening skid and left them no longer standing as the NHL’s only winless team.
“Everybody’s happy,” Kings head coach Peter Laviolette said. “I mean, the guys have been working hard, it’s just, we haven’t been scoring goals, Tonight, we were able to capitalize.”
The Kings didn’t exactly spread the scoring around in neat fashion. They spent the early part of the game trailing 2-0, then suddenly turned the first period on its head with two goals in the final 33 seconds, one of them coming from Artemi Panarin with about two seconds left before intermission.
Forward Adrian Kempe, who scored twice for his first two even-strength goals of the season, said that quick burst changed everything.
“It’s a big shift,” said forward Adrian Kempe, who scored twice for his first two even-strength goals of the season. “Obviously, you’re down 2-0 and you score two in 30 seconds or whatever it was.
That can shift momentum a lot. I think coming into the locker room after that, everybody kind of felt that now we go, and now we’ve got to step up and everybody’s got to play better because now we’re back to even.
It was a good turning point for our team.”
Kempe and Panarin were part of a productive line that included new first-line center Alex Laferriere, and that trio finished with seven total points.
Los Angeles then took control late, scoring three times in the final 13 minutes of the third period. The biggest swing came on an unassisted, end-to-end rush from defenseman Erik Gustafsson, a highlight-reel play that became the game-winner.
“That’s a real highlight-type play,” Laviolette said. “It’s kind of old school, you go back and wheel it out of your own end, split everything up the middle and get behind and then to finish it off too.
He was running out of real estate, so it was nice to see the finish on it as well. Obviously, a big goal at the time.”
Darcy Kuemper gave the Kings the kind of goaltending they’d been missing, too. He finished with 30 saves and made several key stops across all three periods while Los Angeles was chasing the game, tying it, and then protecting the lead.
“I thought that our goaltender was terrific tonight. Darcy played great for us,” Laviolette said. “They got a lot of talent on the other side there, so he had to make big saves and he did.”
The win came at the start of a long road trip, mostly in the Eastern Time Zone, and it finally gives the Kings something to build on away from home.
“I think we’ve been playing a lot better than our record,” Kuemper said. “[We’ve been] just a little snakebitten. We’ve been playing a lot of really good teams, so it’s felt like our game’s been building each and every game, and finally we were rewarded.”
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Zuccarello said the start had not been easy after the time away, but he sounded encouraged by the chance to settle in and keep sharpening his game with the team. For the Kings, that leaves an obvious upside if he can keep building off this latest appearance, even if there is still a little catching up to do before everything feels natural again. [Read more 🡒]