LAK Recap
On the second half of a back-to-back, the Kings fell short to the Vegas Golden Knights in Sin City. In a battle of two of the top teams in the Western Conference, the Kings and Golden Knights faced off for the third and final time this season. Falling 3-2 on Thursday night, the Kings season series record against the Golden Knights concluded at 1-1-1, earning three of a possible six points.
It was a “feeling out process for both teams” in the first period according to Kings Head Coach Todd McLellan. During that process the Golden Knights took a 1-0 lead. It was Jack Eichel, the Golden Knights leading scorer that put the home team up 7:38 into the game with a perfectly placed wrist shot.
Things picked up in the second period as each team recorded 13 shots on goal. The Golden Knights extended their lead when former King Michael Amadio finished off a beautiful pass from Pavel Dorofeyev in tight on a mini breakaway 2:27 into the second period.
“I really thought the second goal killed us,” McLellan said. “There was nothing going on in that rush or in that play, then all of a sudden Amadio got a breakaway, so that hurts.”
The Kings responded just over 10 minutes later to cut the deficit in half when Anze Kopitar deflected in a shot from Adrian Kempe. Kopitar's goal, his 14 of the season marked the 199th road goal of his career, surpassing Dave Taylor (198) for the third-most road goals in Kings history. The Kings momentum didn’t last long though as the Golden Knights responded with a goal of their own just over a minute later. William Karlsson found some open space in the slot and beat Cam Talbot five hole after receiving a pass from Paul Cotter from behind the net.
The Kings pushed back in the third period, outshooting the Golden Knights 14-10. Despite the shot advantage, the Kings only mustered up one goal in the period. With an empty net and trailing by two goals, Trevor Moore wristed a perfectly placed shot to get the Kings within one. Moore beat Logan Thompson above the shoulder and by the ear for his team-leading 17th goal of the season. Assisting on the Moore goal was Kopitar. With the two-point effort, Kopitar has now registered 22 even-strength points (10-12=22) against Vegas, the most against Vegas in league history.
Another late flurry of opportunities provided itself for the Kings in the dying seconds by the black, sliver and white, but the luck was not in their favor on this night in Las Vegas.
Talbot stopped 29 of 32 shots.
