|
Kings let one slip away against San Jose |
|
|
|
|
|
on Twitter
The Los Angeles Kings just couldn’t seal the deal in round two against the San Jose Sharks on Sunday.
Dustin Brown scored half way through the first period to give L.A. a 1-0 lead but were unable to hold onto it as the Sharks scored two in the third to win 2-1.
The inability to get insurance for the 1-0 lead was something of a concern to Kings’ captain Anze Kopitar.
“Obviously it’s going to be tough to win when you just score one goal,” said Kopitar. “It just seemed like we pulled back a little bit and we weren’t attacking as much as we did in the first two periods.”
This is something that is echoed by head coach John Stevens who felt like things went a bit off-track after L.A. scored the opening goal.
“[In the second period] we had pucks that were turned over in the neutral zone, then had a chance to get in deep that really allowed [the Sharks] transition game to get going and you could clearly see they wanted to establish their forecheck,” explained Stevens. “We talked about the need to play 60 minutes tonight and I thought we played 20 really well and then 40 the way they [the Sharks] wanted to play.”
Adrian Kempe returned to the lineup after missing Thursday’s game due to an illness. His reunion with Tanner Pearson and Tyler Toffoli was hoped to reignite the chemistry they had prior to his absence.
The strong second line for the Kings had their chances to score racking up 10 shots on goal between the three of them. However, No one could take advantage of those chances.
“I thought we had our chances, we did our job,” said Toffoli. “We had really good opportunities to score and put them away and we didn’t do that.”
“It’s always the same thing when we play this team, it’s not a surprise. We had the lead, we blew it and it sucks.”
The fact that the Kings led for most of the game was a bit of an aberration of play. Jonathan Quick’s play was the only reason they had a chance to win as he stopped 30 of 32 shots in the loss.
Melker Karlsson scored the Sharks first goal when a bouncing puck found its way to him alone in front of the net, beating a diving Quick. Then Barclay Goodrow’s shot took a crazy bounce off of Joel Ward’s skate and past Quick to give the Sharks their first lead of the game that they would never relinquish.
“Well, there’s a lot of issues before that ricochet happened,” said Stevens. “It may look like an unlucky play, but there was an awful lot of things that could’ve gone better prior to that puck going into the net.”
Coming up next for the Kings, the Vancouver Canucks visit the Staples Center on Tuesday night. Vancouver hasn’t had a good time against California teams this season, losing to the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 on Thursday and then the Sharks 5-0 on Saturday night. The Kings hope this continues has they will want to break their own mini two-game slide.
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»