Takeaways: LA Kings 2, Devils 5 – A rough second period

A rough second period was too much to overcome as the New Jersey Devils downed the LA Kings 5-2 on Saturday night.

Goal Breakdown

First period:

LAK: PP Kevin Fiala (16), ASST: Adrian Kempe (12), Drew Doughty (23)

NJD: PP Tomas Tatar (10), ASST: Nico Hischier (22), Jack Hughes (25)

Second period:

NJD: Erik Haula (3), ASST: Dawson Mercer (17)

LAK: PP Anze Kopitar (12), ASST: Drew Doughty (24), Gabriel Vilardi (14)

NJD: Nikita Okhotiuk (1), ASST: Ondrej Palat (1), Jack Hughes (26)

NJD: Ryan Graves (4), ASST: Yegor Sharangovich (9)

Third period:

NJD: EN Jesper Bratt (18), ASST: Yegor Sharangovich (10), Ryan Graves (11)

Goals

Goals:

NJD: 5

LAK: 2

Shots:

NJD: 28

LAK: 37

Power-plays:

NJD: 1/3

LAK: 2/4

Here are three takeaways from Saturday’s 5-2 loss:

The power play is clicking

If there was one bright spot in last night’s loss, it was the power play. Earlier in the week the LA Kings went 4-for-7 in a 6-3 win over the Edmonton Oilers and once again scored multiple goals on the man advantage last night.

Kevin Fiala opened the scoring off a beautiful backdoor feed from Adrian Kempe. The goal by Fiala was his third power-play of the week. Anze Kopitar got the second power-play goal in the second period by re-directing a Drew Doughty shot from the blue line, which would be the last goal of the night by the Kings.

With those two goals, the LA Kings are now 25% on the power play. That is good enough for 8th in the NHL. The last time they had a top 10 was in the 2015-2016 season. They also finished 8th in the league that year.

Quick struggles again

Jonathan Quick has had a phenomenal career as an LA King. The 36-year-old netminder has been a three-time all-star, two-time Jennings trophy winner, two-time Stanley Cup champion, and a Conn Smythe trophy winner. In addition to those accolades, Quick also has the most wins and shutouts in franchise history while also being fourth in wins (367), first in shutouts (57), and first in playoff shutouts (10) by an American-born goalie. He will definitely get his number retired by the Kings. However, do all those accomplishments outweigh how poorly he has played in the 2022-2023 season? No.

Quick once again let in some questionable goals. In the second period, the Devils scored three goals on seven shots. The third goal by the Devils went off of Sean Walker so that one you can’t blame him, but the other two goals were suspect.

Those are two goals Quick would definitely like to have back and may be the first one to tell you he should have made those saves. For the night, Quick had a .852 save percentage and is now down to a .883 save percentage on the year. Quick’s last win came on December 1st against the Arizona Coyotes. It’s painful to see but as they say, father time is undefeated.

UP NEXT: The Kings will get four days off and return to action on Thursday at home against the Dallas Stars. The game starts at 7:30 PM PT and can be seen on Bally Sports West.

Featured image credit: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

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