Kings Turning It Around With Long Road Ahead
- Updated: December 16, 2016
After faltering against the lowly Buffalo Sabres Tuesday, the Kings had to turn things around on this nine game road trip that will take them right to the end of the year. And turn it around they did, taking them a total of 21 seconds. That’s all it took to get on the board in its victory over the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 Thursday at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
In what will be its last meet-up at this historic arena, the Kings dominated a majority of this game, taking round 1 and 2 without question (22 – 8 in shots) and then outscoring the Wings two goals to none in the third.
The first goal, at :21, came via Derek Forbort’s apparent harmless wrist shot from the blueline that had eyes to the back of the net behind a not-so-screened Jimmy Howard.
After a heartbreaking shot by Anze Kopitar that went post to post somehow without getting past the goal line, the Wings tied up the game at 7:13 on a stealth backhand pass by Luke Glendening to Mike Green in the slot.
That’s all the scoring the Red Wings would get, even though they outshot the Kings 10 to 9 in the third. Goalie Jeff Zatkoff, a Detroit native who hasn’t seen much action with the Kings, would get 17 saves on 18 shots, and capture his second win to five losses.
The rest of the scoring came from the Kings. In the second Nic Dowd took a slick centering pass from Dustin Brown and, after missing on the first tip in, took his time to flip the rebound top shelf over Howard. The third period saw two goals from Tyler Toffoli, his sixth and seventh of the season. At 13:50, Toffoli took the puck from Tom Gilbert at his own blueline and skated the length of the ice to the front of Howard before making one move to his right and sliding the puck past the goalie’s left pad. His second goal of the period came on an empty net at 16:26 on what would be a one-on-none breakaway after a deek move past Detroit’s defense.
Through the LA Kings Insider Jon Rosen, coach Darryl Sutter said, “We’ve been playing really well on the road. If you look, we’ve won three of four on the road in tough buildings – Detroit, Anaheim, Arizona. Don’t put too much into it other than a game at a time.”
Presently the Kings team is 15-12-2, five points behind Pacific Division leading San Jose Sharks. They next face the Pittsburgh Penguins, Friday, December 16 in yet another away game.
Said Sutter, “I don’t look at it as a long trip. I think everybody made a big deal out of it. It’s unfortunate for some of the people who aren’t used to traveling and things like that. You’ve got to play 41. At the end of the season, it’s 82.”
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