The LA Kings show heart in a BIG comeback win in Vegas

The LA Kings show heart in a BIG comeback win in Vegas

Is it possible to have a huge win in game two of the season? The Kings show guts in beating the Vegas Golden Knights. Also, some smoke around an Adrien Kempe trade. Details on that and more on this edition of Locked On LA King. You are Locked on Kings, your daily podcast on the Los Angeles Kings, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Hey Kings fans, welcome to Locked On LA Kings, part of Locked On Network, your team every day. Thanks for making Lockdown LA Kings your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcasts and on YouTube. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app now by visiting FanDuel.com and win $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. I’m Eddie Garcia, your host of Locked on LA Kings. I’ve worked in sports media for the past 30 years. Also one of the co-hosts of Locked on NHL Game Night, a nightly podcast and YouTube show that recaps a night in the NHL and a passionate LA Kings fan for over 30 years. While the LA Kings played game two of the NHL season, back-to-back games on back-to-back nights against another Western Conference Power. This time, the Vegas Golden Knights on the road. If you missed it, you missed quite the roller coaster ride. The Kings started off well, had a 3-1 lead, but then allowed four unanswered goals to fall behind 53. Some people were commenting same old Kings, but it wasn’t the same old Kings in this one. They score the final two goals in the third period. Force overtime. It goes to a shootout where the Kings pull out what feels like a huge 65 victory. Now, I know it’s probably not the case, a huge win in game two of 82, but it did kind of feel like that because of how the Kings won. We have seen the Kings obviously not be able to hold on to leads or blow leads, but for them to fight back and get a big win against a good team on the road playing on back-to-back nights with their backup goalie and net kind of feels like a big win. Now, the Kings had lost all the momentum in this game, uh, but they rally back, uh, showing some heart and penalties helped Vegas get a couple power play goals. They tied up the game at 3-3 and they’re going into the third period. So, it’s okay. You You didn’t play well in the second period once again, the Kings. And I take notes during the game and I wrote down in my notes when it was tied at 3-3 and we’re going into the third, who’s going to step up? Who’s going to step up for the Kings? And it looked like the answer was going to be a very disappointing no one because the Kings then fell behind 5-3. But the Kings did in fact have multiple players actually step up and make plays and eventually pull out the huge victory. And at that point when it’s 33 and the Kings have hurt themselves in many ways to put themselves in this position. I just wanted to see some heart, some guts, some fire, some fight from the kings. And I am very happy to say that eventually I did see that from multiple players. So that’s a really good thing. Uh I know hard to kind of step back uh and enjoy a hockey game when your team is involved because if your team doesn’t win, that’s kind of all you care about. And I’m usually that way as a Kings fan. But I do have to admit this was a very entertaining hockey game. Um, but more importantly for the team, for the fans, a big win, even if it is just game two of the NHL season. And again, back-to-back games on the road, you’re backup goalie, you’re trailing in the third period, and you find a way to win with multiple players stepping up. That is a good win. That said, there are things the Kings need to clean up going forward. Let’s get into the game stats uh for this one as the Kings get the 6-5 shootout victory. Shots on goal favored Vegas 35-26. Power plays, Kings were one for one while Vegas was 2 for6. Faceoff percentage pretty heavily in favor of Vegas, 62.1% to 37.9%. Hits were even, 37 36 in favor of LA. block shots. Kings had 18 and the Golden Knights had 14. But the disparity of shots on goal, uh, that’s usually not the case for the Kings, especially giving up 35 shots on goal. Now, certainly when you give up six power play opportunities, that’s part of the story, but and that’s also something you talk about the Kings having to clean up. Too many penalties in this one. That’s back-to-back games. The Kings have given up six power play chances against in each game. And in this one, it included a big twoman advantage for Vegas, which they scored on relatively easily. They did have a threeminute power play that turned into a two-man advantage. And then because we’ll get into it later, but there was a major penalty. It kept Vegas on the power play. Even after they scored on the two-man advantage, they scored again. So, uh, too many penalties and too many shots against for the LA Kings. Faceoffs, as I mentioned, something else they need to clean up as well. So, that’s kind of another good thing I think in the big picture is that this was not uh a Kings team that played their aame. Um, I I don’t know what grade I would give it. Maybe a C++ uh but still beat a very talented, very good team uh on the road. And I I do wonder if maybe playing on back-to-back nights, I thought maybe this is one of those rare occasions where it actually benefited the Kings because Vegas was playing their first game. Yes, they get all the emotion of a home opener and all that and they played well. Um but the Kings having played the night before, maybe there were moments where they were a little bit more into the flow of things than than Vegas was. I don’t know. But I but I said it’s it may be one of those rare occasions where playing on back-to-back nights, even away from home, might have actually helped the Kings out. Uh but I talk about shot suppression, usually a strength to the Kings. They’ve given up 58 shots on goal in their first two games of the season, and that has unfortunately resulted in giving up nine goals so far this year. That’s uh obviously not the Kings defense that we have uh come to know and appreciate. Um, but again, it’s early. I do expect the Kings to get things together. Of course, they are they were playing two very, very good teams in Colorado and Vegas. That’s a factor as well. But, uh, lots of things to clean up though, uh, for the LA Kings. One of them is playing better in the second period. I’m not sure what is going on with the Kings and second periods through two games so far this year. Um in the in the second period, the Kings have now given up a total of six goals in two games. Uh they’ve allowed a total of three goals in the other five periods of hockey if you include the overtime as well they played against Vegas. So uh two games is not a trend yet, but it is something to keep an eye on. Uh the only thing I can think of that is clearly different in the second period as opposed to the first or the third periods is of course the team has the long bench and it’s harder to make line changes because you’re so far away from your bench if you get caught in your own end. Um I can’t see that as maybe a reason for the Kings to have such a bad time in the second period. Maybe it’s just a coincidence. Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know. But uh the Kings have not looked good in the second period of games so far this very early in the season. On the plus side, uh the team did have its issues on the road last year. You might remember uh the Kings were a very average 1719 and five away from home. So, the Kings getting a big road win in their first road game of the year uh is nice, especially after having the opposite happen at home where they were so good last year, losing the home opener. So, um maybe things are going to be a little bit different this year. Maybe the Kings will not be quite as good at home and maybe they will be better on the road. We shall see. I do want to check in on the time on ice for the Kings defense which we have uh kind of in the spotlight so far uh this season and and maybe a bit misleading but also maybe a little bit concerning. Uh Drew Dowy led the Kings in time on ice for defenseman 25 minutes 48 seconds. So back up to 25 plus minutes for Drew. Mikey Anderson at 23 minutes 29 seconds. Brian Dumlan at 21 minutes and 11 seconds. Cody Cece 19 minutes and 37 seconds and Joel Evansson had 19 minutes and 17 seconds with Brandt Clark bringing up the rear in a big way. 15 minutes and 20 seconds for Brandt Clark. However, there is a bit of an explanation for that. Uh Clark is the only Kings defenseman that doesn’t play on the penalty kill and the Kings were short-handed six times in this game. So that certainly played a factor into it. Still, even with that, don’t like seeing Brandt Clark having only played 16 minutes of this game. However, he did come up with a big play late in the game that we will get into in just a minute as we talk about which players in fact stepped up big for the LA Kings. We’ll do that next. You’re on lockdown LA Kings, your team every day. The NFL season is here and FanDuel is making sure you’re ready for kickoff with a can’tmiss offer right now. New customers can bet just $5. And if your first bet wins, you get $300 in bonus bets to bet across the app. I love using FanDuel because if it’s however you like to bet, player props, building a same game parlay, or even jumping in live as the action unfolds. It makes every game more exciting. Whether you’re watching your team or just keeping an eye out on your fantasy lineup, it is quick, easy, and the best way to add a little more energy to your Sunday or your Monday or your Thursday. So, are you ready to play? Download the FanDuel app now by visiting fanduel.com to get started. That’s fuel.com to place your first $5 bet. All right, let’s get into some of the individual performances from this 65 shootout win over the Vegas Golden Knights. And let’s check the lineup in this one real quick. This was the exact same lineup as we saw on opening night against the Avalanche with the exception of one and that would be the starting goalie Anton Forsberg with the Kings playing on back-to-back nights gets his Kings regular season debut and Darcy Kemper served as the backup. Once again, the rest of the lineup exactly the same from the opening game of the season. Normally when we start to look at the individuals, I start with the goalenders unless there’s a reason not to and and there is to in my opinion in this case again with the game tied 3-3. I asked who would step up for the Kings and then they were down 5-3 and I said it looked like the answer was going to be nobody but in fact there were some players that stepped up and let’s start with Trevor Moore. uh after a Joel Edmonson terrible turnover and then compounding his mistake by taking a penalty. Uh the Kings go short-handed and at that point they’re down two goals. You’re just hoping to avoid allowing Vegas to put in the dagger because at that point they scored on that power play. I think that’s game over. Well, Trevor Moore had different ideas as did Drew Dowy with a poke check. Created a turnover. Philip Den to know then flipped it ahead and Trevor Moore wins the race to the puck wins the race past all the defenders goes in one-on-one with the goalie and scores a huge short-handed goal obviously the first short-handed goal of the season for the Kings a terrific finish by Trevor uh full speed a defender on his back flips it into the top part of the net so not only do the Kings prevent Vegas from putting in that dagger but they score a power play goal themselves and put themselves down just one goal and now it’s obviously a much more uh competitive situation. Moore also ends up with the game-winning goal in the shootout as well. A great wrist shot from Trevor Moore. I have said I think Trevor is going to have a big bounceback season and uh certainly this game uh was a game where he can certainly build off of hopefully and get some confidence. Quinton Biffield, you know, we talked about it on our previous show. Of the big three, Biffield, FIA, Kempe, which one of those guys was going to step up because they were all pretty quiet in that season opening loss against Colorado. One of those guys needed to be better. Now, we did see Adrien Kempe score the first goal in the shootout, so he helped. FIA did have an assist, but was largely not that dangerous in this one. Biffield, though, was the one that stepped up. a great steal using his long reach. Breaks in on goal all by himself and finishes it with a beautiful backhander. Um he also had a very nice assist on the game tying goal in the third period. Did have a breakaway chance in overtime on a nice play from Drew Dowy, but couldn’t finish that one. He was called for an embellishing penalty, which I don’t know about that one, but overall great great game for Quinton Biffield. loved that defensive play to to get the breakaway goal and then being a playmaker in a big moment, setting up the tying goal late to force overtime and eventually a shootout. So, good on Quinton Bfield for getting his first goal of the year and having being being the one guy that we did see really step up of that group of top forwards for the Kings that we we really need one of those guys pretty much every night to kind of insert themselves. It’d love to be more than one, but on this night I thought it was definitely Quinton Biffield. And the man that Biffield set up for that game tying goal was defenseman Bran Clark. Even with the limited amount of minutes that he played in this one, uh, great to see that that didn’t seem to bother Clark that in a big moment he made a big play, jumped up into the play like no other defenseman on the Kings roster would even think about doing. Uh, goes hard to the net. Q puts it right on his stick and he deflects it going full speed towards the net into the back of the net to tie up the game. He goes crashing into the goalie. He’s celebrating on his back. Uh that was a great great goal for the Kings. Uh Brent Clark clearly those are the type of skills and the type of instincts offensively that we are looking to see more of and it was great to see him come up with a big goal in a big moment. Uh just hope to see obviously some more of that from Bran Clark going forward. All right, now let’s get to the goalender Anton Forsber. Um I thought a bit of an up and down night for him in his debut for the Kings. Good first period where he didn’t allow a goal. Saw seven shots. He had one kind of scrambling stack the pads kind of save, but otherwise not too much that was too dangerous. The Golden Knights did have one that they they shot off the post, but second period, that’s when he allowed three goals. One of them a wrist shot from some distance after a Cody CC turnover. May have been screened by his teammate Brian Dulan. It was a nice shot. Um, I would categorize it though as a stoppable shot. Second of the three goals was on, well actually the second and third goals that he allowed were both on power plays. one a twoman advantage, the other on a power play shortly thereafter as part of a five-minute major. So, those are those are difficult ones. I don’t really put those too much on on Forsber. The fourth goal was a one-time shot from an elite player, Jack Eel. Kind of went through Drew Dowy as well. Eichel’s got a great release. That’s a tough save, but it I will say it was stoppable, but tough on that one. Uh the fifth goal was a beautiful passing play by Vegas. tic-tac-toe. Forsber no shot at all on that one. I will say Philip Forsber had a couple of really solid saves in overtime and he stopped two of the three shooters he faced in the shootout including a great pad save on Jack Eel and then the game-winning save on Mitch Marner to preserve the Kings victory. So, all in all, uh, a bit of an up and down night for Anton Forsber, but when it mattered most, kind of like the Kings, he did step up in the right time and make some key saves. Andre Kouseno, uh, was probably the Kings best player in the opening period. He was active, he was noticeable, creative, dangerous with the puck on his stick. Uh, beautiful finish on the first goal of the game on the power play for the Kings. wrist shot into the top corner of the net. Glove side also smartly used the Vegas defenseman as a screen on that shot. Um, and Kusco also a secondary assist on the game tying goal by Brandt Clark as well. So, Andre Kuseno had a fine game there. Gets his first goal of the season. Uh, Andre Kopitar, he entered the game 29 points away from passing Marcel Dion to be the King’s all-time leading scorer after getting an assist on opening night. Well, he got another assist in this one. He had the primary assist on the Koosco goal. That gives the captain two points on the season and is now 28 points away from being the Kings all-time leading scorer. We’ll be updating that every game with Andre Kopitar. Alex Turkot made a really nice play. Set up Joel Arma for a shot that we thought he scored on. Ended up going off of teammate Jeff Malot. So, congrats to Jeff Malott. Gets his first career goal. He didn’t shoot it. It just would got a piece of his body and in. But hey, they all count. So, congrats to him on that. Um, however, after that play, Turkot then took a bad penalty, was a hit from behind, put a Vegas player into the boards. He was called for a fiveminute major, and that helped the Golden Knights get back in the game. Now, was it a five-minute major? Real time, I didn’t think so. But the replay replay looked like um it probably was. is when you see the replay, the player was away from the boards. He hit him in a manner that kind of drove him dangerously into the board. So, um yeah, in the end I like I said real time I didn’t think so, but then when I saw the replay, I thought, yeah, it probably is a penalty. So, uh there was a retaliation call against Lefar that was called. Did I say Lefar? Sorry, Alex Turkot, not my Alex is confused. There was a retaliation call against Alex Turkot. Um, so that was called. So it was four on four for two minutes and then Vegas got a threeminute power play and then Alex Leferier took a penalty that gave Vegas a two-man advantage. They scored pretty easily and because it was a five-minute major, Turkot doesn’t come out of the box and Vegas still on the power play scores again to tie it up. So again, we talked about too many penalties for the Kings. Unfortunately, Alex Turkot and Alex Aferier. Um, just got to be a little bit more disciplined than that, especially when you’re playing with the lead. And I got to talk about the blue line for the Kings. Uh, in particular, Cody Cece and Brian Doomland. They were not great on this night. They were both a minus two. And I swear it seemed like every time I looked out there, they were on the ice. I’m like, do we have any other defenseman uh to put out there? I will just say this, both those guys um were brought in to be a lot better than we’ve seen uh I would say so far on the season, especially in this game against Vegas. Okay. Is an Adrien Kempe trade in the works? We will discuss that next here on Locked in the League Kings, your team every day. All right. So, I’m not uh I’m not a big conspiracy theory guy at all and I don’t have any inside information on this, but I’ve heard some interesting things and it has me a little bit concerned about Adrien Kempe. We had the report on Tuesday opening night from ESPN’s Emily Kaplan. She said the two sides, Kempe’s representatives and Ken Holland were not close on a new deal. Dave Penota, the fourth period reported that talks between Kempe and the Kings um also are not close. Um he had reported that Kempe was looking for 10 to 10.5 million per year. The Kings started under nine. We’ve seen Kyle Connor of the Winnipeg Jets get 12 million a year. Jack Eel just got 13.5 million. Um, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Kempe was actually looking for around 11, which again I would pay him in a heartbeat. Um, and maybe he sees what those other guys are getting and he thinks, “Hey, the market is is paying these guys higher, these UFA to be forwards. Uh, they’re getting a lot of money. I want what’s mine.” So, here’s the thing that’s interesting. Both of the Kings first two games at home against LA and on the road against Vegas, Tampa Bay Lightning general manager Julian Breezwis has been in person watching both Kings games. That is very unusual. Now, why would he be doing that? Maybe he really likes LA. Vegas is always a fun time. Um, the only thing that makes sense to me is he’s getting a first eye, firsthand account of Adrien Kempe, and the Tampa Bay Lightning are a serious Stanley Cup contender. Um, and he’s a very aggressive general manager. So, I look, if he shows up in Winnipeg, I think the the the we know for sure. We have definitive proof. It’s possible may I I don’t know why an Eastern Conference GM would be looking at Western Conference teams earlier in the year. Um, maybe there’s some other explanation that I am not aware of, but that’s the only thing I can think of is that maybe maybe the word is out that they’re not close and the Kings may be looking to trade Adrien Kempe because they can’t let a guy like that walk and get nothing in return. I hope that’s not the case. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. I think it’s a very unusual situation. I also had heard that there were more scouts in attendance for the Kings season opener than any game in recent memory, which is also weird for a season opener. So again, maybe maybe the word is out that um that Adrien Kempe might be available and and people are scouting him. Although, you know, you’re like, why would you need to scout Adrien Kemp? You know how good he is. But anyway, I do find that very unusual that that a general manager of a Eastern Conference team has been at both of the LA Kings two games so far this season. If you can think of something else, I would love to hear it, but I’m wondering if maybe that’s the reason why. All right, on a completely different note, um the LA Kings have started their first two games of the year on uh national television. both games. They were ESPN the first night, TNT the second night. Andre Kopitar has gotten a ton of love on both of those broadcasts. Uh he did a special interview before both games. Lots and lots of praise from the broadcast crews from each game. And I had said that when Kobatar made his announcement before the season, one of the reasons why I was I liked it was because I thought this is going to give other broadcasters, other fans, other media a chance to throw him his flowers as he goes on his farewell tour. And certainly it has happened so far and he absolutely deserves it and I have uh I’ve been very very glad to see that. All right, before we uh sign off, I want to give out Normally we call it our three stars. Maybe we should call it our three crowns. Every time the Kings win, we’re going to crown three Kings players for being the three that kind of really helped out uh to get that victory. And then it’s always great when you win and there are multiple players that could be eligible to be crowned. Um certainly Andre Kouseno is one of those guys. Again, I mentioned it great in the first period. Scored a goal, assisted on Brandt Clark’s tying goal. Certainly deserving of consideration for a crown. Uh but not this time. Uh you could always go Jeff Malot with for his first career goal. Just kind of a sentimental thing, but no, I’m not going to give him a crown. So, uh I’m going to give the three crowns. Sounds like a Swedish thing. Out to Brandt Clark. Brandt Clark will get a crown for his gamety goal in the third period. Uh Quinton Biffield is getting a crown for his goal and his assist on the game tying goal. And the king that is getting the crown the most or the big the the king of kings uh for this game, I’m going with Trevor Moore. I thought that short-handed goal was a huge huge goal in the comeback effort. And then he would turn out to score the game-winning goal in the shootout as well. So all of Thousand Oaks rejoice. Hail the King. Trevor Moore. uh he is our number one star or our number one king in the win over the Vegas Golden Knights. So obviously a lot better to be uh one and one than 0 and2 or 02 01 and one maybe. Um but a big win for the Kings. Uh glad to see it. Glad to see how they did it. Glad to see they did it on the road. Glad to see they did it against a very good team. So, an encouraging win for the LA Kings as they venture out on the road. Their next game will be Saturday against the Winnipeg Jets. For you every day is those you listen and watch Lock Kings Every Day. Coming up on our next show, it is our fan feedback show. If you want to react to any of our shows this week, our Pacific Division preview, the Jim Fox interview, both of our game recaps in the game against Colorado and the win over Vegas, or anything else that’s on your mind, the email address is locked on Eddie atgmail.com eddie. And if you’re watching on YouTube, we’d love for you to leave your comments in the comments section. Hear what you have to say about what’s going on with the LA Kings. Stay connected with the show on social media, X, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok. We are at Locked on LA Kings. And if you want some exclusive content, including special features, some group chats, things like that, exclusive content, you can send me an email, la [email protected]. We’ll give you the information on that. You could also, it’s a great way to support your host and all the hard work he does. I’m Eddie Garcia. Thanks for listening and watching Locked on LA Kings, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Have a great rest of your day. We’ll talk to you next time. And as always, go Kings. Go.

Is it possible to have a HUGE win in Game #2 of the season? The Kings show guts in Las Vegas rallying for a 6-5 shootout win. Plus, is there some smoke around an Adrian Kempe trade? Details on that and more on this edition of Locked on LA Kings.

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