6 Unanswered Goals; Kings Fall to Hawks in the Third

43 in 66. 43 times in 66 games the LA Kings have given up the first goal. Sure it’s an afternoon game and the Kings are always sluggish in those but come on now. This is Chicago, who were beaten 7-2 by the Sharks two nights ago and also STOP GIVING UO THE FIRST GOAL. I’m starting to think it’s actually part of John Stevens strategy. Allow the other team to score first to lull them into a false sense of security and confidence, then strike back. In Hungarian, the word is Hosszú görcs, and it’s a fencing term. And while that all very well and good, perhaps a better chess strategy than hockey. C’est la vie. So as you can surmise, the first period for the Kings wasn’t great. They had a slow start and while they seemed to pick up after the first media time out in the offensive zone (Adrien Kempe, Anze Kopitar I’m looking a you) the defensive zone was still sluggish so sure enough, when Jonathan Quick was unable to cover a bouncing puck the Blackhawks picked it up, he Kings didn’t react fast enough and the puck was in the back of the net 13:11 in. A subdued crowd wasn’t pleased. A few minutes later one of the strangest plays I’ve ever seen almost put the Hawks up 2-0; Quick caught a high puck in his glove but either he didn’t hang on to it long enough or it bounced out but next thing you know, the puck is directly on the stick of a Hawk and past Quick. He looked bewildered, as did many Kings. Clearly, they thought the play had ended. The goal was deemed a good goal so the Kings had to go to Toronto for the challenge: goaltender interference. Even some of the Hawks thought the play was over and had made significant contact with him. Thankfully for the Kings, they agreed, and the goal was waved off. After another 59 seconds of play, the period was gratefully over. On another slightly horrifying note: the Kings went 3 for 16 in the faceoff circle.

At this point I considered just copying and pasting my recap from Thursday. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: Kings give up 2 goals in the first (okay so one was waved off but still), take a penalty within 30 seconds of the second period starting. Begin their comeback based on the momentum of the penalty kill and score three unanswered goals in the second, the first two within a couple of minutes of each other, capping it off with about a minute of a split power play. Hell there was even almost a Jeff Carter shorthanded goal! (It was super eerie.) Today it was Doughty to the box 14 seconds in, Carter almost shorthanded on that, and Tanner Pearson with the breakaway that opened the floodgates. (I knew all he and Tyler Toffoli needed was papa Carts back.) 1:54 Later, the Kopitar/Brown/Iafallo line was making magic, opening up lanes for Alec Matrinz to snap the puck past an open Forsberg. 2-1 and Carter was all over the ice, hitting two posts and drawing another penalty. Down the other end Quick stopped a Patrick Kane breakaway that could have swung the momentum back; instead Iafallo capitalized on an offensive zone turnover and absolutely no one who’s ever seen him play or was paying attention to today’s game was surprised when he danced around Duncan Keith (among two other Hawks)  and snapped home the Kings third. Sure enough, Jonathan Toews closed the second period in the penalty box… It was getting eerie in Staples Center.

Unfortunately, the Kings flipped the script on themselves in the third. What should have secured them two points instead slid into a deluge of lackluster and quite frankly inexcusable play. Sure, they were outhitting the Hawks 24-5 and ended the period outhitting them 36-7, but that was the only statistic worth touting. Muzzin was one of three Kings who got penalties in the third, but it wasn’t his that was the problem. It was Doughty. Sure, the call on Doughty was questionable. His stick didn’t actually touch Erik Gustafsson. (And neither did Pearson’s stick hook Connor Murphy later in the period.) But sometimes refs make bad calls, and you have to accept them, play through them and not let them take you out of the game. You rise above it, you come back and play excellent hockey. That’s not what happened. Doughty chirped the ref so badly he got a second penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. And that’s the penalty that started the beginning of the end. Anisimov from Towes and Kane with 9:12 remaining. Next came Hinostroza unassisted. 5:36 remaining. Tied game. Not where the Kings wanted to be, nor where they should have been. (Can you tell this one made me mad? And actually not because it was against the Hawks. I could care less which team they gave up 3 unassisted goals against; the fact is they had this game in their hands and they essentially gave the other team 2 points.) The go-ahead goal came while Pearson was in the box and with 1:58 remaining the Kings that came out in the third were not going to be a team that could come back from that. (Hey here’s an idea, maybe don’t let Towes stand alone by the net. Just a thought.) An empty-net goal would seal their fate, and Kopitar was not happy. He shouldn’t have been. With 16 games remaining, the Kings aren’t a shoo-in to the playoffs by a long shot, and need to play significantly better than they did for 40 minutes of this game.