In Los Angeles Saturday night, the Kings demonstrated another flaw in their game as they lost in a shootout to the Anaheim Ducks, 3-2. The Kings have become the New Jersey Devils of the western conference this season.
Jakob Silfverberg scored his seventh shootout goal this season, a league best, to give the Ducks the needed two points.
“I’ve been taking a lot of shootouts this year so far and been lucky enough to put a lot of them in,” Silfverberg said. “It’s a lot about confidence going in there, and I feel like I have the confidence with me now and I have the confidence from [coach] Bruce [Boudreau].”
Silfverberg’s regulation scoring is less impressive with the results but his work ethic remains high.
“He’s got a great release,” Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said. “There’s not a lot of guys who can shoot the puck like that off his stride. He reminds me a lot of [Joffrey] Lupul when he was here.”
Kings head coach Darryl Sutter has been pointing the finger at himself over his club’s ineffectiveness in the skills competition. The Kings are 1-7 in the talent portion of the game.
“They (Anaheim) are scoring the big goal for sure, and we’re probably really close in those percentage points and goals against,” Sutter said. “But we have to continue to work at that. That has to be the foundation of our game. I thought Jonathan was our best player tonight, and it was good to see.”
The win capped a good two-game set for the Ducks after beating the Devils earlier.
“They had three days off from their last game, and, yeah, they are missing a couple of guys, but I am pretty sure that was a pretty determined group out there,” Ducks head coach Bruce Boudreau said of the Kings. “We played three games in four nights. I just think that now we can compete with them. They may win, but we are not afraid to play them anymore.”
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