*Photo from The Athletic*
The Los Angeles Kings are on a roll. Entering the game vs the St.Louis Blues winners of 4 in a row and a 5 game point streak, they wanted to extend both streaks. They sure did. Jonathan Quick stopped 31 shots, Dustin Brown scored twice, and the Kings shut out the Blues with a 3-0 win on Monday night.
Gabe Vilardi started the scoring for the Kings, getting a power play goal at the 17:30 mark of the first, his 5th goal of the season. In the second period, Brown scored unassisted at 18:54 to extend the lead to 2-0, with his 9th goal of the year. In the 3rd, Brown iced the win with an empty net goal, his 10th goal of the season, making it 3-0 Kings.
Brown said of the win that "I think it's definitely a team collective effort. There's huge parts of the team that weathered the storm, and now we're back. I think people outside the room may be surprised. We're building on last year and we've got confidence. We've got a good, veteran core group, and some other spots have been filled by young players. That's a good thing for us."
Quick stopped all 31 shots that came his way, earning a shutout. It was the second shutout in 3 starts for Quick, and the 54th of his NHL career. Quick improved to 5-2-2 this season, while the Kings as a group improved to 8-6-3 on the season, roaring into 4th place in the NHL's West Division, thanks to 5 straight wins and a 6 game point streak. The Kings would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.
Kings coach Todd McClellan said of the team's recent success that "We're not surprised one bit. We have some confidence. Everybody is in sync. We're structurally pretty sound. We're making plays. We're getting good goaltending. Our specialty teams are giving us a boost most nights. Is that surprising? To us no, but maybe to the hockey world a little bit."
The Blues have fallen to 1-4-1 in their last 6 home games with the loss. Jordan Binnington started in net for the Blues, saving 28 shots out of 30 that came his way. Binnington's record fell to 8-5-2 on the season, while the Blues now sit at 10-7-2 this season, second place in the West Division.
Blues captain Ryan O'Reilly said of the loss that "I think we aren't trusting ourselves very much right now. You could see a couple times on the forecheck we're not putting pucks in the right areas and making it a little too easy for them to break out, but it took too long to get going. We need to spark some offense and get some sort of momentum that way. You could tell the more the game went on, the more frustrating it was that we couldn't get one. It's tough. It's a frustrating loss, but we have to regroup and get back at it."
The two teams meet again on Wednesday night in St.Louis, with backup goalie Cal Petersen starting for the Kings as they look to bump the win streak up to 6 games. The Blues will try to snap their two game skid as Binnington starts again.
Comments
Post a Comment