LOS ANGELES -- Playing the second half of their back-to-back set, the Detroit Red Wings lost to the Los Angeles Kings, 4-1, at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday night.
Goalie Cam Talbot made 37 saves for the Red Wings (7-9-1; 15 points) against the Kings (10-6-3; 23 points), the club he spent his 2023-24 campaign with before signing a two-year free-agent contract with Detroit in July. On the other side of the ice, goaltender David Rittich had 17 saves.
“We gave ourselves a chance at times tonight,” Red Wings head coach Derek Lalonde said. “But not enough to give us a chance tonight.”
The Kings scored twice in a 22-second span late in the first period to take a 2-0 lead. Mikey Anderson put the hosts ahead 1-0 at 18:05 with a sharp-angle shot that squeaked by Talbot, then Tanner Jeannot made it 2-0 at 18:27 when he tapped in a pass from Trevor Lewis at the backdoor.
“We knew we probably had to be opportunistic tonight,” Lalonde said. “We knew there’d be some moments that we’d probably get some zone time, maybe a bend not break, and at times we got that. Unfortunately, we gave up two quick ones at the end of the first [period] and both started on our sticks.”
Following a scoreless second period during which Los Angeles outshot Detroit 14-5, Adrian Kempe padded it to 3-0 with a breakaway goal just 15 seconds into the third.
“We actually gutted out the second [period],” Lalonde said. “I know the zone time and shot discrepancy didn’t feel good, but our analytics team was telling us chances were 10-8 after two. So we’re one shot away and had some looks, then the back breaker was the start of the third.”
Snapping Rittich’s shutout bid with 1:27 to play, captain Dylan Larkin fell to his knees while sending a backhand shot into the back of the net from the left face-off circle to make it 3-1. Vladimir Tarasenko and Alex DeBrincat recorded the assists on Larkin’s team-leading 10th goal of the season, which he scored after the Red Wings pulled Talbot in favor of an extra skater.
