In Los Angeles, Darcy Kuemper made 26 saves and the Arizona Coyotes shutout the Kings, 4-0, on Saturday.
John Hayden potted his first NHL goal to give the Coyotes a 1-0 lead in the opening frame.
“Everybody kind of showed up tonight, and we’re going to need that every night,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “We’re going to need everybody playing like that. You don’t need anybody playing great or spectacular. We just need everybody to play like a good, solid game, and I thought we got that tonight.”
The win pushed Arizona back into the fourth spot in the playoff race in the West.
“You can use these situations either way,” Arizona’s Alex Goligoski said. “If you see that team lose, it gives you juice. And if you see them win, you’ve got to win. Anything you can do to get that chip on your shoulder or that extra motivation, that’s valuable.”
Lawson Crouse and Jakob Chychrun pushed lead out to 3-0 in the second period.
“It was just an empty night,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said. “Legs, thought process, emotion. They took it out of us early and we couldn’t recover from it.”
Phil Kessel also scored in the middle frame to make it 4-0.
Calvin Petersen made 36 saves in the loss.
“Playing with a lot more energy, playing with a lot more emotion,” LA’s Anze Kopitar said. “I don’t think that the connection is there that needs to be to win games, or these types of games where you’re battling for spots. We’re going to have to learn that and certainly get better.”
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