Going into Thursday night with the NHL’s longest active winning streak of six games, the Kings faced a tough test against one of the league’s top teams and dropped their first game in 16 days. Falling 3-1, the Kings are now 1-1-0 with five games remaining on their season-long seven-game road trip.
The first period flew by with few whistles and few shots for the Kings. Despite have the best scoring chance of the period with a tipped shot off the post, the Kings managed only one shot in the opening 20 minutes, while the Devils put nine shots on goal.
The Kings had a golden opportunity midway into the second period to score the game’s first goal when Alex Turcotte was awarded a penalty shot. Taking his first career penalty shot, Turcotte was unsuccessful as the puck rolled up on his blade when he attempted to shoot and missed the net high. Not to worry, the Kings would score the game’s first goal five minutes later. Coming on what was a pair of unbelievable plays on both ends of the ice by Jordan Spence, the Aussie born defenseman first broke up a 2-on-1 to spring an odd-man rush for the Kings, followed the play up the ice and finished it off with a one-timer goal. Setting up Spence for the goal were Alex Laferriere, the Chatham, New Jersey native who returned to his home state and Phillip Danault. Up 1-0 late in the second, the Devils responded just 2:15 later when a Jack Hughes shot deflected off of Ondrej Palat and into the Kings net. With 40 minutes played, the score was knotted at 1-1 with the Devils leading 18-9 in the shot department.
Enter period three and the tie remained for the first 13 minutes. Following a failed defensive zone exit for the Kings, a lost assignment on the lethal Jack Hughes proved to be the difference as the Devils assistant captain received the puck backdoor and netted his 12 goal of the season with 7:02 to go in regulation. The Kings earned themselves a power play and a great opportunity to even the score with three minutes remaining, but a shorthanded goal off of a rebound from a blocked shot for the Devils doubled their lead and sealed the Kings fate.
David Rittich took the net for the Kings after back-to-back starts for Darcy Kuemper and the Czech stopped 23 of 26 shots.
