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Rank the Players: Two Goals Not Enough, for Once

The hat trick by everyone’s least favorite player was bad enough, but then to lose a goal, 36 seconds off a power play, and the Los Angeles Kings’ best chance to climb back into the game all in one fell swoop? That hurts.

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Let’s be honest: that whole third period kerfuffle was not the reason LA lost tonight. The Kings took five penalties (mostly of the bad variety) against a power play that had scored in seven straight games, and BIG SHOCK, they allowed some power play goals. Three, to be exact, two of which were scored by Corey Perry from a combined five feet or so. The Kings simply weren’t effective in their own zone for most of the evening, a problem that gets compounded when you’re on a back-to-back against a team that gets a lot of offensive zone time to begin with.

I’ll let the recap handle breakdowns of the goals themselves, but here’s what happened in the third with LA down 4-2: the Kings got a power play of their own and had the Ducks scrambling. Hampus Lindholm tried to cover the puck with his body but Tyler Toffoli worked it free, Anze Kopitar passed it across, and Milan Lucic slammed it home. The Kings were going to get a second wind with only one goal needed! And then, the challenge; Kopitar might have been offside on the zone entry, which had occurred 36 seconds earlier.

After nine minutes… NINE MINUTES… of watching and re-watching the play, the referees disallowed the goal. Yes, it was ridiculous that the review ran for so long, but if the referees truly felt that the offside violation was conclusive, there’s not much that can be done about it. Except for one thing which the refs WERE supposed to do, and didn’t.

Despite Darryl Sutter and Drew Doughty immediately letting the referees know that the time hadn’t put back on the clock, the game resumed, and the Kings had less than half of their PP remaining. Unsurprisingly, the Kings did nothing on the remainder of the power play and barely threatened over the rest of the game.

Still though, the Kings allowed a Corey Perry hat trick, scored one of their goals on an extremely lucky bounce, and ran out of steam late. This was always going to be a tough two points.

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