The LA Kings were unable to build on Thursday’s win over Tampa Bay, as they surrendered three power-play goals in a 3-1 defeat against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Columbus opened the scoring on the game’s first power play, as forward Mason Marchment found the back of the net from the slot. After the Kings were unable to convert on two separate occasions with shorthanded, 2-on-1 rushes, the Blue Jackets capitalized at the other end. Marchment worked his way into the slot and slipped his shot past Kings goaltender Anton Forsberg for his sixth tally of the season and a 1-0 advantage.

Inside the final minute of the opening period, Marchment added a second power-play goal to send the visitors into the first intermission up two goals. Defenseman Damon Severson, stationed at the center point, got a shot through, with Marchment providing the screen in front of Forsberg. The shot deflected off Marchment’s shoulder and in to put the Blue Jackets up by a pair through 20 minutes.

Late in the second period, the Kings pulled within a goal as they used a simple formula to get on the board. After a sustained shift in the offensive zone, forward Andrei Kuzmenko rotated to the top of the zone and with forward Trevor Moore providing the screen in front of the net, Kuzmenko scored from distance, past Columbus netminder Jet Greaves, to bring the hosts within 2-1 through 40 minutes.

The Blue Jackets iced the game late with their third power-play goal, coming from forward Kirill Marchenko, providing the insurance goal that sealed the deal with a two-goal victory.

Hear from forward Quinton Byfield, defenseman Joel Edmundson and Head Coach Jim Hiller after tonight’s game.

Quinton Byfield

Joel Edmundson
On the team’s inability to get things going at home this season
Very frustrating. We obviously want to put on a show for our great fans. We’re not scoring goals. Special teams is kind of killing us right now. We’ve got to figure that out soon.

On the penalty kill giving up three goals tonight
I mean, when we take eight minors a game, teams are going to start breaking us down. So, we’ve just got to be smarter, keep our sticks down and take less penalties. It gets tiring for killers. It’s just it seems like every game we’re taking way more minors than the other team.

On if he feels the team is lacking in confidence after recent results
I don’t think so. I mean, obviously, forwards want to score goals and when they don’t, obviously it might eat them up a little bit, but everyone’s in this league for a reason, good players, so no one should be lacking confidence.

On taking a stick in the face earlier in the game
I’m good, yeah. Couple of stitches, but just a high stick, ref didn’t see it. Can’t see everything. I thought they could go back and review it, but they said they can’t, unless one of the linesmen see it. They’re just doing their jobs.

Jim Hiller
On not being able to get anything going this season on home ice
Yeah, that’s hard. That’s hard. I didn’t think we started with good legs. They had a couple o-zone shifts, got us on our heels and we didn’t establish anything. We got better as we went along but obviously it wasn’t good enough.

On decision making tonight and the team’s effort level
Decisions on the penalties, first, unacceptable. You saw the penalties, we saw them and I’ve said it before, sometimes they’re 50/50, the refs call them, these were just bad penalties, just very poor decisions. The effort, I never question the effort of our team. I think we tried, there’s no question. When you when you take seven penalties and a combination of them it makes it pretty hard for the other guys. They’ve got to sit on the bench, penalty killers wearing themselves out, then you want to go try to play offense and the rhythm is off. We really didn’t give ourselves a fair chance.

On the PPG’s against being down to number of penalties versus penalty kill breakdowns
I don’t think they had a lot of chances on their on their power play, they just happened to find a way to put the puck in. It wasn’t like they had us spinning in our zone, shot and save, shot and save and recovery, they just found a way to get them through and in.

On the first goal against, coming after two missed 2-on-1’s shorthanded
No question. I mean, the game changes on different moments and that, for me, was a moment that [could have changed the game]. You get the crowd in the building, we’re short, we feel good, who knows what happens next. We don’t execute, they execute, now we’re in a hole.

On the power play tonight
Power play guys are usually your most talented players, 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. Even if you don’t score, you still feel like there’s some momentum coming out of it. When it doesn’t happen for you, then the grind 5-on-5 feels that much more difficult.

On Samuel Helenius’ icetime tonight
It’s something I’ve talked to Sammy about. We need him out there, but we’re going to lean on 11 forwards, even though we only have the six defensemen. Sammy understands that, we’ve had that conversation. We’re a little thinner in the middle, we want to have the extra center in there for different reasons. Sammy, he’s got to eat it, but we’ve talked about it, so it’s kind of like 11 and six with him in there as the safety valve there right now. He’ll get more minutes. There will be times when he gets out there and he gets the forecheck going. We got behind early tonight, so we wanted to try to push for some offense.

Notes –
– Forward Andrei Kuzmenko (1-0=1) scored his sixth goal of the campaign to reach 10 points (6-4=10) for the fourth time in his career, his second straight season doing so in an LA Kings uniform (5-12=17 in 22 GP). Kuzmenko becomes the third forward of Russian nationality to record multiple 10-point seasons for the Kings, joining
Vitali Yachmenev (2x) and Alexander Frolov (7x).
– Defenseman Drew Doughty (0-1=1) picked up his ninth assist of the season, his 33rd career point against the Columbus Blue Jackets (9-24=33) through 38 games played. Doughty ties Tampa Bay’s Victor Hedman (6-27=33) for the ninth most points by a defenseman against Columbus in NHL history.
– Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) tallied his sixth assist of the season for the 90th point (19-71=90) of his career, tying Nashville’s Nicolas Hague (21-69=90) for the fifth most points among defensemen selected in the 2017 NHL Draft.
– Forward Trevor Moore skated in his 200th home game as a member of the Kings this evening, becoming the eighth undrafted skater in franchise history to reach this mark.
– Captain Anze Kopitar skated in his 1,485th career regular season game tonight, breaking a tie with fellow two-time Frank J. Selke Trophy-winner Rod Brind’Amour for sole possession of the 28th most games played in NHL history.
– Tonight’s contest also marked Kopitar’s 48th career game against the Blue Jackets, breaking a tie with fellow 2005 NHL Draftee Sidney Crosby (47 GP) for sole possession of the ninth most games played against Columbus by an active skater
– Forward Corey Perry (51 GP) also broke a tie with Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews (50 GP) for sole possession of the seventh most games played against the Blue Jackets by an active skater League-wide.

The Kings will return to the ice tomorrow evening against the Seattle Kraken at 7 PM in the final game before the NHL’s holiday break