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Nashville Predators @ Los Angeles Kings Game 4 Recap: 1000th Home Win!

Kings dominate early; Iafallo scores the game winner with a minute left...

In a game that can best be described as “that’s so Kings”, the LA icemen took a three goal lead into the third period, promptly blew it and then scored three goals in the final minute to beat the Stanley Cup contending Nashville Predators 7-4.

After the Kings dropped to the bottom of the league’s standings last season, they have discovered why they arrived there. Apparently the Kings four-year slide was due to the Taylor Swift banner hanging at Staples Center. This was alleviated with a Clippers-type in-game cover-up. No, we aren’t kidding. Problem solved.

Seven different Kings scored in a rare Saturday afternoon win at Staples: Micahel Amadio, Anze Kopitar, Kyle Clifford, Ilya Kovalchuk, Alex Iafallo, Dustin Brown and Drew Doughty.

FIRST PERIOD

Predators 1. Kings 0.

Kings 1. Predators 1.

Kings 2. Predators 1.

Shots on Goal: Kings 13. Predators 3.

SECOND PERIOD

Kings 3. Predators 1.

Kings 4. Predators 1.

Shots on Goal: Kings 29. Predators 12.

THIRD PERIOD

Kings 4. Predators 2.

Kings 4. Predators 3.

Kings 4. Predators 4.

Kings 5. Predators 4.

Kings 6. Predators 4.

Kings 7. Predators 4.

Shots on Goal: Kings 38. Predators 32.

QUOTABLES

Todd McLelIan on what changes between the first 40 minutes and the last 20 minutes:

“I don’t think once we ever stood off and let them manage their breakout from behind their net in the first two periods. In the third, there were probably five or six times in a row where we’re standing off, they’re getting what they want, they get fresh players on the ice, they get to play long, we didn’t make it difficult on them. That is not what we want to be. We want to be what we saw for the first two periods. We’re accomplishing things as a team. We’re starting to develop our identity. We slipped back a little bit every now and then. That’s why there’s so much inconsistency in our game. Once we get it and everybody buys in for a full 60, we’ll be fine.”

Predators center Matt Duchene:

“There’s lots of good things in the third we can build on, but we shot ourselves in the foot. You’ve got to give them a lot of credit. They were the better team through 40 minutes. They pushed us around a little bit.”

Dustin Brown:

“I think there’s a lot of work to be done in learning how to win again and what I mean by that is, for whatever reason we kind of sat back on our leads. I think we maybe took our foot off the gas, and then our forecheck doesn’t work and our neutral zone doesn’t work, and then we’re playing D zone. A lot of things have changed, the way we’re playing. We’re way more aggressive. We’re getting us a lot of opportunity to work on playing with leads, which we need more work on. We had a tough stretch maybe the first 10 minutes of the third, but then we had a lot of grade-A scoring chances before we had the goal that put us ahead. I think it’s encouraging that we’re not down in the dumps after blowing a three-goal lead at home.”

NOTES

Up Next: The Kings host the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday at Staples Center. It’s the second game of five-game homestand.

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