By the time the Los Angeles Kings got their offense unpacked from the trip to Sunrise, the game was 4-0 in favor of the Florida Panthers.
The Kings rallied for three goals in the third period but could not put across the tying goal in a 4-3 loss on Thursday night.
“It’s the desperation part that kicked in in the third period, second half of the third,” LA’s Anze Kopitar said. “We’ve got to figure out how to bring that to the start of games.”
Sam Montembeault who iced after starter Chris Driedger left with a lower body injury midway through the opening frame, made 22 saves to get the win.
“It wasn’t your traditional way of going about it, but it was a big win for him and us,” Panthers coach Joel Quenneville said. “He was comfortable at the beginning of the game. He did some good things. They played well in front of him.”
Kopitar, Jeff Carter and Alex Iafallo scored in the abbreviated rally.
“The comeback part is in our DNA. It’s been there for the whole year. It shouldn’t go anywhere,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “It should always be there. That part, I tip my hat to the guys. But everything else that went into the game, I’m really disappointed. The details that we had and the adjustments we tried to make in the first period were nonexistent. It’s like the guys weren’t even in the meeting. That’s real important. The first goal, we take a penalty a mile away from our net, pull a stick out of some guy’s hand that doesn’t even have the puck. The mistakes we made after that … disappointed. We haven’t shown that in a long time.”
Evgenii Dadonov and Frank Vatranostarted the Panthers’ offense with a 2-0 lead.
“We did good on the power play, we had one of those long goals that’s really special,” Quenneville said. “I think everyone touched it at least once. We moved it around crisply and had a nice finish to it. [Toninato’s] pass over to Frankie was a perfect pass and a nice goal as well. After that, we’re in a pretty good spot. We have to make sure we close that out in a better way.”
Mike Matheson and Brian Boyle pushed the lead to 4-0.
“I’ve been running around a lot,” Montembeault said. “I had three flights in three days: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. At least I had a chance to get a good practice yesterday and I skated this morning too. Obviously I wasn’t expecting to play in that one, but it turns out we played very well and we had a good win.”
[WATCH: All Kings vs. Panthers highlights]
Jack Campbell made 22 saves in the loss.
“We were pretty sluggish right off the bat,” Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. “Just some mental mistakes. We weren’t playing well right off the bat, and that’s what set us off on the wrong foot and then we were chasing the game from there. But with 10 minutes left, [coach Todd McLellan] just kind of said, ‘It’s 4-0, let’s start doing things right, setting up for the next game,’ and we almost came back. I actually thought we were going to come back. We were close there. Good fight till the end, but not a good 60 minutes.”
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