The Los Angeles Kings hosted the San Jose Sharks in the season opener for both clubs and the result was an ugly 5-1 loss hung on the Kings.
It was a night tip-ins and deflections for the Sharks.
It was the debut for Peter DeBoer as head coach of the Sharks.
“Not much went wrong tonight,” DeBoer said. “Like I told the team, that game tonight was a culmination of a month of hard work. We showed up at camp and really worked and paid attention to detail and the guys had a real captive audience. Tonight we played like we’re going to have to play: with four lines, six defensemen, great goaltending, great special teams.”
Martin Jones was tested often with good shots from the Kings but he showed poise in the net as he faced his former club. Jones had 19 saves in the win.
“I’ve been scored on before,” Jones said. “It’s not the way you want to start a game. I thought we showed a lot of character as a group, not letting that spiral. We could have easily done that.”
The Sharks’ new captain, Joe Pavelski, had a goal and two assists in the win.
“We just controlled it well,” Pavelski said. “We put it in good spots all night, where we had chances to get back or chances to get on the forecheck and create that pressure. Game 1. Great job by the guys, and there’s a lot of good things we can take from it.”
Jonathan Quick looked lost on many of the Sharks’ offensive rushes and
“We’re playing against a big, fast team [and] we didn’t play like a big, fast team,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “You’ve got to check. If you don’t check, you can’t score. We had a lot of guys, especially top guys, that weren’t interested in that part of the game.”
It was a flat performance from throughout the Kings’ bench.
“It’s definitely not the game we drew up, and our special teams were not good,” Anze Kopitar said. “We just talked about them but we didn’t execute them. We didn’t play the way we should. It was very sloppy.”
Milan Lucic was assessed a match penalty for going after Logan Couture near the end of the game.
The line of Kopitar, Marian Gaborik and Lucic was a dreadful minus-6 on the night.
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