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Kings salvage a point against the Predators |
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The Los Angeles Kings came all the way back but couldn’t finish as they lost to the Nashville Predators 4-3 in overtime.
L.A. was down 3-0 going into the third period when they climbed back into the game with three to tie it.
However, in overtime, Viktor Arvidsson caught the Kings deep in the Predators’ zone and beat Darcy Kuemper on a breakaway in the dying seconds.
“Losing sucks,” lamented Kings’ head coach John Stevens after the game. “I guess at the end of the day you can be happy with the point because it didn’t look like we were going to get one, but I flat out don’t like losing.”
Scoring started halfway into the first period when Yannick Weber sent an alley-oop pass to Miikka Salomaki, who beat the Kings defense then Kuemper on breakaway to give the Predators a 1-0 lead. Less than a minute later, P.K. Subban just threw the puck on the net with traffic in front where the puck somehow found a way into the back of the net creating a two goal advantage for Nashville.
The Predators padded their lead when Filip Forsberg carried the puck into the Kings’ zone and then drew enough attention from the Kings’ defense to find a streaking Craig Smith who roofed a puck past Kuemper to give Nashville a three goal cushion.
At this point the Kings were not playing badly as they were outshooting Nashville 24-18 with a bunch of scoring chances but Predators’ goalie Juuse Saros was on his game. However, the start of the third period is where the Kings’ cued the comeback.
Just 16 seconds into the third period, Anze Kopitar danced into the Predators’ zone and passed to a wide open Alex Iafallo who shot it into the open cage to break the shutout. It was Iafallo’s first NHL goal and it has been a long time coming.
“It’ll be pretty cool to say that I got a wide open net from Kopitar,” said an excited Iafallo. “I finally got a weight lifted off my back but I just wanted to stay positive and keep doing positive things out there and good things will happen.”
A few minutes later, with the puck along the boards at center ice, Saros expected Folin to shoot the puck along the boards so he wandered from his net to cut it off. However, Folin knowing that Saros has been cheating all game to do that, shot it on net and into the open cage to make the score 3-2.
“[Assistant coach Dave Lowry] was talking about it in the second period,” described Folin. “Let’s waste one, fire one on net because he was going out to play the puck really early and it was on my mind.”
L.A. managed to tie the game when Alec Martinez blasted a Drew Doughty setup past Saros on the power play with Subban in the box for Nashville.
The Kings continued to press in the third period, dominating play all the way to the end of regulation but they just couldn’t get that go ahead goal.
“Quite honestly, that game’s good for us, a little adversity through the course of the game,” explained Stevens. “Things don’t always go the way they’re scheduled to go in a hockey game and you’ve got to deal with some setbacks but it was good that we had to face some adversity, it’s good that we fought back and got a point.”
Coming up next for the Kings, they face the Anaheim Ducks at the Staples Centre on Tuesday night. The Ducks are currently on a three game losing streak with losses to Toronto, Nashville and San Jose and will be primed to break that skid against the Kings.
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
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