Los Angeles, CA — The Los Angeles Kings (44-24-9) were defeated and shocked by the Seattle Kraken (34-38-6) in a close 2-1 match at Crypto.com Arena on Monday, April 7.
This loss will impact the chances of the Kings playing to win the Pacific Division, but may affect the seeding for Los Angeles as the Stanley Cup playoffs near the corner, with the Las Vegas Golden Knights and the Edmonton Oilers vying to clinch the division.
Going into this game, the Kings had a 29-4-4 home record, treading new waters as the new franchise record. Notably, though, Kings defenseman Drew Doughty was kept on the bench tonight with an ankle injury in order to heal and maintain him with playoffs around the corner.
In the first period, Kings center Quinton Byfield struck first blood early for his team by hitting a backshot into the Seattle net with help from defenseman Kyle Burroughs to score, 1-0. Byfield’s goal also cements him in Kings history as one of the players able to score 20+ goals in consecutive seasons.
The last time that happened was way back in 1991-1992 and 1993-1994, both times by Luc Robitaille during the Forum days.
Though the Kings committed the first penalty of the night — defenseman Brandon Clarke tripping one of the Kraken players —, Seattle gave up a hooking and high sticking penalty to give the Kings two power plays. Neither were taken advantage of.
Near the end of the first period, Seattle’s offense began rolling with a tipped wrist shot from Kraken center Matty Beniers to even the scoreboard, 1-0. Less than a minute later, there was a roughing play between Kings’ Brandt Clarke and Kraken’s Jared McCann, stopped just in time by the referees before they were gunning to fight each other. Right after that moment, the Kraken took the lead away from Los Angeles when Seattle defenseman Brandon Montour scored with a wrist shot, making it a 2-1 score going into the second period.
The Kings began the second period with a much more aggressive push onto the Seattle Kraken. LA catches a break after the Kraken makes a slashing penalty, granting them a power play. The Kings make no use out of the power play. Despite a few great saves by Kuemper throughout the second period, the Kings were denied progress by the Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord.
The third period reared its head around, and throughout the first half of the final period both teams went back and forth with missed shots into each respective net. Throughout the first half of the third period, both the Kraken and the Kings played clean hockey, with neither team giving up a goal nor a penalty. The rest of the period played out the same way, and at this point Los Angeles became desperate enough to leave their net empty in order to add another player to their scoring drive.
As the final minutes of the game reared their head around the corner, the Kings went out without any roar to lose the game 2-1 despite many good attempts by the offense. The Kings perhaps played too clean of a period, since they kept the scoreboard clean of any additional goals.
If anything, despite Seattle being a relatively worse team in the Pacific Division, Daccord’s superb goaltender play tonight proved to challenge the Kings’ offense will make or break the LA Kings’and stand as their biggest challenge to prepare for and outmaneuver as the Stanley Cup playoffs inch ever closer.
Their 30th home game win may have to be put on hold for now.
