At stop two of four on their road trip, the Kings continued their winning ways away from home. With a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators, the Kings improved their NHL-best road record to 5-0-0.
The Kings offense struck early in the first period, capitalizing on the power play. After a strong first shift from the Kings top power play unit, the team’s second unit hopped on the ice and converted in their first opportunity in the offensive zone. Quinton Byfield and Trevor Moore worked together to get a shot on net and it was Phillip Danault who knocked in a rebound on a second effort. With the secondary assist, Byfield now has six points in his last five games, the most points he’s had in a five-game span in his career. No goals followed in the period and the Kings outshot the Senators 14-13.
With a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes, Carl Grundstrom doubled the Kings lead at the five minute mark. Grundstrom took a pass from Adrian Kempe and beat the former King Joonas Korpisalo high-glove. Kempe’s assist moves his point streak five games (2-6=8). Just under four minutes later, it was the captain Anze Kopitar who knocked in a rebound to give the Kings a 3-0 lead. Andreas Englund, who picked up the primary assist now has points in back-to-back games, while Kempe picked up his second point of the night. As for Kopitar, the goal is his 398th.
In the final minute of the second period the Senators struck back and cut the deficit to a 3-1 game with a Dominik Kubalik power-play goal. With momentum from the late second period goal, the Senators again cut into the Kings lead 4:09 into the third period. A Josh Norris goal from Jacob Bernard-Docker and Vladimir Tarasenko brought the Senators within one, but that was as close as they’d come.
In his first game against his former team, Cam Talbot made the start for the Kings and stopped 24 of 26 shots. Talbot now improves to 5-2-1 on the season.
