Kings’ division title hopes buried beneath Golden Knights’ early barrage
LAS VEGAS — Kings captain Anze Kopitar raised his arm in the air and moved over to hug his teammates.
All was well in the land of Kings … until it went wildly off the rails against the Vegas Golden Knights.
The catalyst was a successful challenge by Vegas for offside, taking Kopitar’s goal off the board just 2:33 into Thursday’s game between the Kings and Golden Knights. What happened next was an immediate and dramatic shift of momentum impacting and eventually rattling the Kings at T-Mobile Arena.
Vegas scored 21 seconds after the negated goal and padded its lead to 4-0 by the end of the first period on its way to a 5-2 win against the Kings in what was billed as a key Pacific Division showdown.
“It’s happened to us before where we gave up one and we gave up a few more right after that,” Kopitar said. “I don’t think it was the (negated) goal or anything. But we’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
For the Golden Knights, the win strengthened their hold on the division lead with 106 points, three ahead of second-place Edmonton and six in front of the third-place Kings.
All three teams have three games left in the regular season. The Kings have lost four of their last six games.
“We weren’t ready to play. I think that was pretty evident,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “The other day, I gave credit to the team as a whole. I said it was a team win. Everybody contributed. Tonight was a team loss. There were very few players that were engaged early.
“You can’t play like that at this time of the year. We haven’t had one of those periods in a long, long time. So it’s a little humbling when it does happen. That won’t be good enough for the rest of the season and playoffs. I think we know that.”
Most of the damage was inflicted by the Golden Knights’ bottom six. The third line of Ivan Barbashev-Chandler Stephenson-Phil Kessel accounted for seven points. Barbashev had a goal and an assist, Stephenson scored and added two assists, while Kessel had two points, scoring once and recording an assist. The Golden Knights scored three times in the opening 6:07, all produced from that third line.
“You can be physically or mentally tired – all teams are in that situation – but when you’re involved in a game … all their damage was done in the first seven minutes,” McLellan said. “So you shouldn’t be worn out at that point. We just weren’t ready to play.”
Kings starting goalie Joonas Korpisalo was pulled for Pheonix Copley at 1:02 of the second period after Vegas forward Jonathan Marchessault made it 5-0, an unassisted effort coming off a Kings’ turnover in their zone. Korpisalo allowed five goals on 15 shots (four on Vegas’ first six shots). Copley made 22 saves in relief.
The Kings were unable to get much going 5-on-5 as both their goals came via special teams, by Kopitar on the power play at 11:24 of the second period and defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov’s short-handed breakaway effort at 14:10, pulling the Kings within three.
McLellan noted that the focus going forward will land on what went wrong in the first 20 minutes.
“I said to the players between periods, we have rules that we follow – 185 days we spent putting those rules in place,” he said. “If we don’t follow them, we have no chance. We tried to play without them for 20 minutes. That will be our focus way more than the success on a penalty kill or on a power play.”
They were playing without three injured regulars – defenseman Mikey Anderson and forwards Kevin Fiala and Gabe Vilardi. A fourth injured player, defenseman Alex Edler, has appeared in 64 games this season.
Of note, one intriguing storyline never got off the ground. Jonathan Quick, the winningest goalie in Kings history, did not get the start against his former teammates. Vegas instead turned to Laurent Brossoit, who has not lost in regulation in eight starts (5-0-3) this season.
Quick was the consummate team player in his 16 seasons with the Kings, which included two Stanley Cup championships. That personality trait has not changed with the trade to Vegas from Columbus in March, one day after the Kings dealt Quick to the Blue Jackets for two draft picks and Gavrikov and Korpisalo.
“LB is playing some great hockey and you’ve got to do what you think is best for the team,” Quick said of Brossoit after the morning skate.
Quick has appeared in nine games with Vegas – starting eight times – and is 5-2-1 with a 3.43 goals-against average and .895 save percentage.
Vegas defenseman Alec Martinez, the author of the series-clinching goal in the Kings’ 2014 Stanley Cup championship win, had the line of the morning when he was talking about Quick’s arrival in Vegas.
What would Martinez have said if someone told him on Oct. 1 that Quick would be his teammate again?
“No chance,” Martinez replied. “I would have said, ‘What, am I getting dealt back to L.A.?’”