It’s surprising that hadn’t happened more recently. “Everybody just talks about Drew, and it just goes down from there”. “It’s something that even after last season we felt that we were top-10 in production from our defense and that’s what we expect”.
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The Kings are 5-3-1 in nine games against the East this season, and 3-2-0 against Pittsburgh’s Metropolitan division.LINEUP: The Kings held a practice on Friday morning at the Toyota Sports Center in anticipation of Saturday afternoon’s game.
Pittsburgh quietly got on the scoreboard on a Chris Kunitz slapshot 23 seconds while the details of Lucic’s goal were still being announced.
Defense has been the foundation of the Kings’ success but the defense corps has changed dramatically after the free-agent departures of Rob Scuderi and Willie Mitchell, injuries to Matt Greene, and Slava Voynov’s domestic-violence case. “They look like one of the better teams we’ve faced”.
The victory was the third in a row for the Kings (16-8-1) and fourth in their last five games (4-0-1).
“I definitely haven’t had the best luck in the world but I don’t really want to think about that”, he said.
Actually, two more, but who’s counting?
The Penguins were penalized for delay of game 2 minutes and 22 seconds into the second period and the Kings swiftly took advantage. Trouba passed to Scheifele in the left faceoff circle, and Scheifele fired by Braden Holtby glove side. A lot of the reason they have remained in games is the stellar play of goalie Marc-André Fleury, whose play has sparked comparisons to his performance during the Penguins’ Stanley Cup run. The first of the series was a attractive goal by Christian Ehrhoff who joined the play and patiently waited for the ideal shot.
Left wing Milan Lucic finished off a two-on-one with Tyler Toffoli by taking the shot himself and propelling the puck through Fleury’s pads at 10:57.
Olli Maatta cut the Kings’ lead to 4-2 when he cut across the hash marks and backhanded one past Jonathan Quick at 18:01.
The Kings spoiled several chances to put the game away in the third, including Marian Gaborik’s blocked penalty shot halfway through the period, but finally ended it when Milan Lucic’s empty-net goal at 18:45 in the period. “Maybe the personnel isn’t as highly touted, but the way we play and our character back there is the same”. He made 31 saves, but the scene had already been set.
“We know that we weren’t exactly happy about that but the overall game, I thought we played pretty good”.
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When: Sunday, 7 p.m.
