In Toronto, the Maple Leafs came up empty in a4-1 loss to the visiting Los Angeles Kings.
The Kings took a 2-0 lead in the first period, and coasted to the win.
Cam Talbot made 31 saves in the win.
“[We were] pretty excited for him,” Talbot said. “You could see Kevin (Fiala) went and grabbed the puck right away for him. I told him on the bench, ‘Congrats buddy, it doesn’t always need to be a rocket because you can shoot the puck but sometimes you just have to put the puck on the net,’ like he did so good for him.”
Andreas Englund hit for his first career NHL goal at 6:38 of the first period to give LA a 1-0 lead.
“It felt great. It’s been a long time since I played my first NHL game, so it’s great to finally get the first goal,” Englund said. “After a while you start thinking, ‘Am I ever going to score one?’”
It was his 89th game i the NHL.
“Tonight was a real solid night,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “I thought our penalty kill early in the first set the tone, who knows how it would have went from there but they did a real good job. Scoring first and then keeping our foot on the gas pedal was important. It was a full team effort. I’m proud of them.”
Phillip Danault scored at 11:40 double the lead for the Kings.
Near the midway point of the middle frame, Arthur Kaliyev stretched the advantage to 3-0 off the power play. He scored on a rebound from the right side.
John Tavares scored off the power play after the Kings had been called for too many skaters on the ice.
“We seemed a little flat and they were quick,” Tavares said. “They used their speed and we have to do a better job of recognizing we were a little flat and our game maybe isn’t where we wanted it to be and how we get that going and grab momentum back. Obviously it took us a little bit too long to get that going.”
The goal came at 8:25 of the third to make it 3-1.
“We were flat from the start,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We had a couple surges through the game at different times but nothing that we sustained. When you’re climbing out of a hole and it’s a very good, structured team, it’s tough sledding.”
The strike momentarily gave the Maple Leafs a bit of jump, but LA replied at 12:13 to push the lead back to three goals at 4-1.
“It’s definitely up there (with our best games this season),” Talbot said. “We started on time, this is a tough building to play in, they come out really hard and they have a ton of talent over there. This was as complete a 60 minutes as we’ve played all year.”
Adrian Kempe scored the back breaker off a tap in from a pass from Anze Kopitar.
William Nylander was given a late assist on the Tavares goal, that extended his point streak to nine games to start the season. It set a Toronto franchise record.
“Whatever the circumstances are, every team goes through times during the year where you have a difficult schedule, you’re coming off a long road trip and I think with the team we have, we have to recognize and understand how you have to fight through that and find ways to execute and do what we need to do to grab momentum, play to our game and dictate the terms,” Tavares said. “Especially the team we are striving to be, situations like these we have to be better.”
Joseph Woll made 23 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.