LOS ANGELES - The Kings did plenty right on the stat sheet and still walked away with a 5-2 loss to the Penguins, a game that kept circling back to the same issue: Los Angeles kept making life harder on itself.
The night started poorly and never fully recovered. From the opening puck drop, the Kings looked flat, and Pittsburgh made them pay immediately. Tommy Novak scored the first two goals of the game, pushing the Penguins in front 2-0 in the first period.
“It’s on the room not being ready to go, Mikey Anderson said. “It’s hard to dig out of a hole when it happens that fast.”
Los Angeles tried to answer with more urgency after that, but urgency alone didn’t solve the finishing problem. The Kings actually had nine more shots on goal, yet Sergei Murashov shut the door with 26 saves and a .926 save percentage.
That combination - early Penguins goals and steady goaltending - was enough to hold off any real comeback push. It also exposed a Kings offense that couldn’t take advantage of a Pittsburgh team that has struggled on defense.
The shot total looked decent, but the quality wasn’t there. Los Angeles spent too much time working from the outside instead of getting pucks into the slot, and that made the attack easier to handle. The Kings finished with 28 shots on goal, but most of them never forced Pittsburgh into real danger.
“Pass up too many chances in the Ozone, and we had good movement and everything, Alex Laferriere said. “We just keep it on the perimeter. Nothing good is going to come from that, so yeah, I just think it's about getting to the hard areas and getting pucks there.”
The Kings also gave Pittsburgh chances the other way. Possession losses turned into opportunities for the Penguins, and those mistakes ended up becoming goals.
Physically, Los Angeles did what it was supposed to do in one sense. The Kings landed 29 hits, while the Penguins had just 11. But the edge in hits didn’t translate into control, and it didn’t keep Pittsburgh from finding clean looks.
The Penguins were still able to generate shots from the perimeter and get pucks to the net when they wanted them there. Los Angeles, despite the heavier body count, never fully dictated the terms of the game.
In the end, the Kings had more shots on goal, more hits and a better face-off percentage, but none of that changed the result. The lapses at both ends of the ice were too costly, and the Penguins turned Los Angeles’ mistakes into goals. This was one the Kings beat themselves in more than Pittsburgh beat them.
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