If there’s such a thing as a good loss, this was it. Doesn’t make me feel any better, though.
The Los Angeles Kings went into the league’s toughest building to win in, against the league’s best team, and took it to their opponents for large parts of the game. They finished with 40 shots on goal, shut out the league’s best power play on five separate penalty kills, got a great performance from Jonathan Quick, and kept Alexander Ovechkin off the board. They still lost, though, as Justin Williams made a typical Justin Williams play to free the puck and set up Evgeny Kuznetsov’s game-winner with two minutes to go.
Sometimes, your best isn’t good enough, and though a lot of the individual players might have regrets, the Kings as a whole played pretty darn well.
More in the recap, including some Anze Kopitar praise. There’s always room for Kopitar praise.