It was a battle of an immovable object vs. an unstoppable force.
The L.A. Kings came into Monday’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs as the NHL’s stingiest defenders, only allowing 14 goals in their first five games. However, the Maple Leafs, the highest scoring team in the league, overtook the Kings defense with their speed and depth to take a 3-2 victory over the last team unbeaten in regulation.
Despite the loss, head coach John Stevens was happy with his crew’s effort but adds that there is still work to do.
“I think we did some good things tonight, but again, there are areas we need to clean up,” said Stevens in the post-game scrum. “We turned pucks over down low in our zone that I think could have been exits… We scored a shorthanded goal [and] gave up a power play goal, so we’d like to get the power play going again and clean up our penalty kill a little bit.”
Toronto got off to a 2-0 lead due to goals from Matt Martin and Tyler Bozak. Less than a minute after Bozak’s goal, Adrian Kempe continued his hot hand by scoring his fourth goal of the season to cut the lead in half. However, early in the third Patrick Marleau tipped a Morgan Rielly shot past Jonathan Quick that regained Toronto’s two goal lead. Trevor Lewis scored shorthanded half way through the third period but it was too little too late.
“I mean obviously it’s tough,” said Kempe about their first regulation loss. “I think we played well, we really pushed in the other half of the game and I think we deserved another goal.”
“There’re things we’ve got to clean up in our d-zone, but overall I think we had a pretty good game and we deserved a better result.”
Prior to the game, the media was abuzz from Drew Doughty’s comments that the Maple Leafs are on their way to becoming a contending team, but not before shoring up their defense. However, Kempe feels that the defense is the most challenging thing about them.
“Their defense tries to jump up into offense pretty often,” said Kempe. “So they got us a couple of times there and that’s something we’ve got to be aware of.”
Since the injury to Jeff Carter, the Kings’ lack of depth has been a major concern. This was put in focus tonight as outside Kempe and the top line of Kopitar, Brown, and Iafallo, L.A. could not muster much pressure in the offensive zone.
Quick did his best to keep his team in the game as he stopped 31 of 34 shots in the loss. However, his frustration did mount near the end of the game, taking a penalty as the Kings were trying to tie it up.
“He’s a fiery competitor, and I think emotion in his game’s a good thing,” said Stevens. “It’s not an ideal situation to be shorthanded for the last two minutes of a hockey game, but he’s a stand-up guy, I’m sure he knows that”
There was an odd situation involving Quick late in the first period. Quick was clipped in the head in front of his net, enough that he grabbed his head. That caused the concussion spotter to send word to the Kings bench that he needed to be removed from the game for assessment. Once, they did, the spotters reviewed the play for a second time and told Stevens that Quick could stay in the game.
Upon putting Quick back into the game, the officials told Stevens that Quick had to miss a play, just as they would if a player was injured and had to be taken off the ice. The confusion led to backup goalie Darcy Kuemper playing 36 seconds of game time before Quick could be put back in.
“We were doing what we were told from the league,” said Stevens. “They [officials] came over after and said ‘you know what? This has never happened before’… they were just doing what they thought was right.”
“Quite honestly, we want to ask the league [for clarification], because it was a little bit disruptive for everybody.”
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