It took one week for the Florida Panthers to avenge their 2-1 loss to the Kings last week. Coming exactly seven days later, the Panthers took down the Kings 3-0 on home ice. The Kings regulation loss now moves their current road trip record to 0-2-1.
The Kings fell behind early on Wednesday and it came from another all too frequent as of late defensive zone turnover. Unable to connect on a breakout by ringing the puck around the boards, the puck eventually ended up on the stick of Dmitry Kulikov’s stick at the point. Kulikov quickly played the puck towards the front of the net and found Matthew Tkachuk. Tkachuk spun with control of the puck in the slot and found Sam Bennett back door, who beat an outstretched Darcy Kuemper for the lead. Down a goal, the Kings thought they tied the game for a brief moment. Driving the net on an offensive zone entry, Trevor Lewis was pulled down and went flying into the Panthers crease, making contact with Sergei Bobrovsky. Meanwhile, the puck made its way to Alex Laferriere and the forward ripped a shot into the open net. The play was whistled down and the goal was immediately disallowed. The remainder of the period favored the Panthers and the home team led 1-0 on the scoreboard and 20-8 in shots after 20 minutes.
The second period went scoreless and the Panthers took their one goal lead into the final 20 minutes of regulation.
Entertaining period three and the Panthers extended their lead. Coming 4:43 into period, the Panthers found themselves on a brief nine-second 5-on-3 power play and immediately converted. It took five seconds after the puck dropped for the Panthers to find themselves the back of the net as a draw win by Aleksander Barkov earned Tkachuk a shot in the slot. The shot missed the net, but the puck bounced right back into the slot and Barkov tapped the puck into an open Kings net as Kuemper could not retreat back in time after challenging the Tkachuk shot. Tkachuk would later add an empty net goal to close out the Kings night, winning 3-0.
Kuemper stopped 36 of 38 shots.
The Kings will look to quickly put this game behind themselves with a date with Tampa Bay Lightning set for tomorrow night.