Special teams usually make up a small percentage of a hockey game. Tonight, the Los Angeles Kings got a painful reminder about just how important that percentage can be.
In a penalty-filled game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Kings went 0-for-5 on the power play while allowing Columbus to score three power-play goals for the entirety of their offense, ultimately suffering a 3-1 loss. It’s their fifth loss in their last six games, as well as their fourth loss in their last five home games and their sixth straight game in which they scored two or fewer goals. In total, the Kings committed seven penalties.
“Unacceptable. I mean, you saw the penalties. We saw them,” head coach Jim Hiller said. “I’ve said it before, sometimes there’s 50-50s the refs call. And these are just bad penalties, just very poor decisions.”
The Kings’ penalties came in all sorts of situations, including two which ended their own power plays, making it difficult to establish any sort of offensive flow.
“When you take seven penalties and a combination of them, you know, it makes it pretty hard for the other guys,” said Hiller. “There’s guys that sit on the bench. The penalty killers wear themselves out. Then you want to go try to play offense, the rhythm is off, so we really didn’t give ourselves a fair chance.”
The constant trips to the penalty box also made things more difficult for a penalty-kill unit which has been one of the Kings’ defining strengths in recent seasons.
“We just gotta be smarter, keep our sticks down and take less penalties,” defenseman and penalty killer Joel Edmundson said. “It gets tiring for killers. It seems like every game we’re taking way more minors than the other team.”
On the other side, Los Angeles entered the game ranked 30th in power-play percentage, hoping to turn their fortunes around against a Blue Jackets team ranked 30th in penalty killing. Instead, Columbus looked mostly in control when the Kings had the man advantage as the home team continued to struggle with overpassing and not generating enough quality looks at the net during their power plays.
“They got a lot of skill, a lot of good players over there too,” said forward Quinton Byfield, who played on both the power play and the penalty kill. “You know, they made some good plays as well. And some were on us as well. So I think we just gotta clean it up.”
“Power-play guys are usually your most talented players,” added Hiller, who revealed he is currently the main power-play decision-maker on the coaching staff. “So they want to feel good on the power play. They want to score first, for sure, but they want to feel good. They want to make good passes. They want to have opportunities. And even if you don’t score, you still feel like there’s some momentum coming out of it. And when it doesn’t happen for you, then the grind of a five-on-five feels that much more difficult.”
The Kings have a quick turnaround, hosting the Seattle Kraken tomorrow night. It’s their last chance before the Christmas break to start turning around their home fortunes — something that, like so many other things this season, they’re convinced they can do.
“We gotta kill those off, [but] I’m not worried about our penalty kill,” Byfield said. “I think we’ll step up again and be better.”