In Los Angeles Thursday night, rookie goalie Andrew Hammond continued his excellent start with a 35-save performance in shutting out the Kings, 1-0.
It was his second straight shutout.
“It’s obviously pretty crazy what’s going on right now,” Hammond said.
Hammond has won his first four starts in the NHL and faced tough competition from Jonathan Quick in the Kings net.
“I don’t think too many people expected a goalie battle between Quick and the Hamburglar tonight,” Hammond said (a reference to his nickname). “When you’re playing someone like that and someone that you kind of watch; obviously he’s close in age to me, but he’s someone you look up to as an NHL goalie. He’s won two Stanley Cups now. Whenever you can play a guy like that, it’s obviously a pretty cool feeling.”
Mike Hoffman scored with 1:40 gone in the third period on a great pass from Mika Zibanejad for all the offense Hammond would need.
“I thought our defense was really slow moving pucks and in the second we passed the puck to them,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “It probably should have been 2-1 them after that and then in the third we just couldn’t get the goal.
“Jeff Carter‘s line was really good, but I think that after that, it was pretty much zero.”
The Kings win streak was snapped in the loss but in their favor most of the clubs around them lost as well Thursday night.
“Tonight we had our fair share of looks,” Dwight King said. “Their goalie was up to the task. We just have to find ways to get to the rebounds. Tonight that was a probably the big thing. There was quite a few kicking around and we couldn’t get them in.”
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