Whatever levels of frustration the Los Angeles Kings had before tonight’s game wildly escalated by the time the game ended.
Despite tons of chances throughout the game — particularly in the first and third periods — the Kings couldn’t get enough pucks into the net in regulation and had to settle for a single point in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Kings had the advantage in nearly every statistical category which measures scoring opportunities, but that didn’t reflect in the end result.
The game is the Kings’ fourth close loss since the start of the new year, all of them coming against teams in playoff contention, leaving the players searching for answers.
“Hard to say exactly what it is that’s not working,” forward Adrian Kempe said. “But clearly it’s something that’s not going right for us.”
The Kings now have 11 overtime and shootout losses, the second-most in the NHL. Tilting even a few of those in their direction would place them in a far more comfortable position in the playoff race. The fact that tonight’s loss was to a fellow contending Pacific Division team makes it even more difficult to stomach.
Los Angeles currently holds the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference by the slimmest of margins, but are also just two points back of third place in the division.
“You look at where everyone is in the standings, you win four games, or even two games, you can jump up four spots,” defenseman Mikey Anderson said. “And you play a team in your division, feel like you play a pretty good game. The extra point can be a big difference right now. So we’re happy to get the point. I think everyone’s just a little frustrated, but we got to stay positive and keep doing it the right way.”
After tonight’s game, head coach Jim Hiller strayed somewhat from the oddly optimistic tone he projected after Monday’s loss to the Dallas Stars.
“It sucks. This is not an easy game,” he said. “Emotions go up and down, and you’ve got to earn it, and obviously we haven’t done enough to earn it. But [the players] shouldn’t feel bad about themselves.”
At the same time, he focused more on a feeling of disappointment rather than the frustration and anger the players expressed.
“I believe frustration is just a bit of a wasted emotion,” he said. “For me, disappointed is a better approach to take, because you can get back over that quicker. I think frustration can build too much. Maybe it’s semantics, I don’t know, but that’s just how I think about it. But again, they have every right to feel the way they’re feeling, because the good things that happened for us last year — maybe we got on the right side of some of them — they’re just not happening for us thus far.”
Like so many other times this year, the Kings are holding onto whatever positivity they can take, in the form of belief that they’re playing the right way.
“I feel like we have the right mentality going into every game,” Kempe said. “You know, we’re staying positive, and I think that’s the most important thing right now, that we’ve just got to keep grinding and keep doing our thing.”
“I don’t begrudge [the players] for being emotional, but we come back with the same effort, it’s all we can do,” Hiller added. “I’ve been saying it for a while. We’re gonna get on a run. It’s just really hard to believe that we haven’t yet.”