LOS ANGELES — There were fancy statistics and flashy plays for the Kings but amid that style was noticeably less in the way of substance as they lost to the Seattle Kraken, 2-1, on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Blake Lizotte scored the solitary goal for the Kings, whose offensive struggles at home continued. They lead the league in goals per game on the road but ranked 18th in home scoring entering Wednesday’s contest in which they mustered two fewer markers than their average. Cam Talbot was solid with 28 saves in defeat.
Brandon Tanev and Jordan Eberle each scored for Seattle and Joey Daccord dazzled in net with 42 saves.
“Just the second opportunities [were missing], they did a good job clearing the netfront, the goalie saw more pucks than what we would want and sometimes you just don’t get the bounces,” Lizotte said. “We could have worked a little harder to get into areas to get the bounces. You make your own luck sometimes, the harder you work, the luckier you get.”
Kings coach Todd McLellan echoed some of that sentiment and said the fact that the Kings were coming off a 4-1 win in San Jose 24 hours earlier was not impactful.
“We didn’t really want to get dirty, or get down and dig in around the net. If it was going to be easy, we were going to take it, but they’re big and strong there, so they didn’t give up much,” McLellan said.
In the third period, the teams played to a one-a-side stalemate, despite a very late power-play for the Kings that they played six-on-four for its entirety, with Talbot pulled. He remained on the bench for the finale, but the Kings could not come up with an equalizer.
“If I was going to sum up tonight and we were going to talk about offense, I’d go right to the power play, flat out to the power play,” McLellan said. “We had seven minutes and we got two shots on goal … we moved like turtles on it, and we were thinking rather than playing.”
As 12 minutes showed on the clock, a Kraken blunder became an opportunistic Lizotte goal as he was the lone forechecker creating light pressure. Daccord rimmed the puck around to a corner where there stood two of his teammates and no Kings, but when the puck clanked off Justin Schultz’s stick and squirted toward the net, which was half open after Daccord ventured away to play the puck, Lizotte capitalized with a snap shot for his fifth goal of 2023-24. The tally was the 100th career point for the undersized, undrafted and undaunted Lizotte.
“The group was happy for two things, one that we got ourselves back into that game, but, two, I’m not sure that we all realized the Lizzo was at a hundred when it was announced,” McLellan said. “[He’s a] pretty motivating young man for a lot of individuals in our locker room, and also in the hockey world.”
With 6:27 elapsed in the final frame and a double-digit lead in shots on goal still persistent, the Kings surrendered a second goal, which stood as the game-winner. Mikey Anderson’s ill-fated jamming of the puck into the slot was predictable enough that Eberle bolted out of the zone even before his team controlled the puck. Matty Beniers threaded a silky outlet pass to Eberle, who finished the breakaway with aplomb.
“I saw a blocked shot, as soon as you see that, a lot of times you can start cheating. I don’t generally do that but it was nice to get in behind [the defense] and find one,” Eberle said.
Before the five-minute mark of the second period, the Kings had a sterling opportunity to set up leading goal-scorer Trevor Moore with a one-timer from the right circle, but he was unable to control the pass and no shot attempt was produced.
The Kraken then forced a defensive-zone draw, which Pierre-Luc Dubois won, only to see Jordan Spence unable to locate the puck in his skates. Tanev pounced, taking one whack to force a Talbot save and then a second for his third goal of the season and the game’s first lead. Tanev had last scored on Nov. 13, and he extolled the simplicity of Seattle’s approach afterward.
Later in the frame, former Junior King Kailer Yamamoto nearly scored on a similar play when he knifed a loose puck through Talbot that he was narrowly able to turn and cover before it crossed the goal line.
The Kings had turned in a domineering first period in terms of possession, attempting 29 shots and hitting the net 20 times. At one point, they carried a 17-2 advantage in strikes on goal, but they failed to convert any of them, much as Quinton Byfield’s nifty between-the-legs passes went for naught.
“We weathered the storm early, they were coming at us hard and then we found a way to start creating for ourselves,” Eberle said, who felt Seattle was affording the Kings “too much respect” and playing a step slow early.
The Kings will be back in action Saturday night when they host another division rival, the Calgary Flames, before the NHL takes its three-day Christmas break.
