Moral of the story: don’t turn the puck over when Jeff Carter and Anze Kopitar are in your zone.
So what did you think of each player on the Los Angeles Kings tonight? Give a thumbs up to any player who you thought did well, and a thumbs down to any player you thought had a rough game. (If you’re not sure or if you thought a player was “eh”, you can simply skip them.) The players will get ranked based on your votes. GO!
The Canucks are the current kings of OT/SO losses, and they turned the trick again tonight. They can look at it either way: either they wasted a terrific effort by Jacob Markstrom, or they were incredibly lucky to get anything after being completely dominated at even strength. All in all, they’ll take the point.
As for the Kings? Unsurprisingly, two days off did wonders for them against a team on night 2 of a back-to-back, and they outshot Vancouver 15-1 in the third. Thankfully, one of those 15 was a howitzer (always wanted to use that word) by Drew Doughty, a power play goal to match the Sedin-to-Sedin one scored earlier. After failing on a power play to end the third and start OT, the Kings scored the only “even strength” goal of the evening at 3-on-3. Alexander Edler threw the pick off the boards to… well, I don’t know who was supposed to get it, but Jeff Carter pounced and fed Anze Kopitar. Game.
More to come in the full recap, including how Nick Shore continued his unlikely journey to being the best hockey player in the history of the game.