In Sunrise Monday night, Jonathan Quick had a much better outing and recovered from being pulled in his last start. In the process, Quick stopped 33 shots in leading the Los Angeles Kings to a 3-1 decision over the Florida Panthers.
Alec Martinez, Tyler Toffoli and Marian Gaborik scored for LA.
Jonathan Quick stopped 33 in win over Florida – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“He’s the best goalie in the world and he never quits on pucks,” Martinez said of Quick. “He’s always staying in the battle and staying in the fight.”
Aleksander Barkov had the only goal for the Panthers.
“We talked in the locker room about how we weren’t a bad team and we could play a lot better,” Barkov said. “We knew we could skate harder and put pucks to the net. I think we did in the second and third periods.
“We tried to score more goals, but that’s a problem right now.”
Al Montoya started for Florida but left in the first period after a head injury in a collision.
“These things happen. Hopefully, it’s not something serious with [Montoya],” Roberto Luongo said. “You’ve got to be ready for a situation like that.”
The Panthers got out of the first period down 1-0 but felt that they should have been a better team that opening frame.
“The first 20 (minutes) was real bad, and that cost us the game,” Florida coach Gerard Gallant said. “It was 1-0, and we competed and battled hard, but you’ve got to be more consistent out of the gate against a team like L.A. We had a real good second. We pushed hard at the end (of the game), but it was a little too late.”
The Kings outshot the Panthers 18-4 in the first period and improved to 2-2-0 on the current five-game road trip.
“That’s .500 (on the road trip), we know that’s not a playoff hockey team,” Toffoli said. “We know going into Tampa what they bring as a hockey team. That’s going to be a huge game. We want to finish this road trip on the right note.”
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