LOS ANGELES — Battling to a shootout in the latest installment of the Freeway Faceoff, the Kings and the Ducks relied on special teams to generate offense Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Tied 2-2 after regulation and overtime after trading a trio of power-play goals and a shorthanded effort, the Kings secured two points against their Southern California rival with shootout conversions from Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kevin Fiala, sending the Ducks back to Orange County with a deserved point for their efforts.
The contest was more of a firefight than the scoreboard indicated.
At the end of regulation, the Kings doubled up the Ducks with shots on goal, 48 to 24, adding two more during the extra five minute period boosted by a career high 10 shots from defenseman Matt Roy. The Kings’ defensive group tallied 21 attempts.
“There’s an expression: one shot equals two if it goes on net,” said Ducks head coach Greg Cronin. “There’s an opportunity for a rebound. I think L.A. was playing with that mentality. I don’t know, for whatever reason we don’t want to do it.”
However, the King’s futility at even strength for the second game in a row allowed the Ducks to hang around.
Limited two nights ago by the Nashville Predators to 14 combined shots through the first two periods, the Kings unleashed 19 on Ducks goalkeeper John Gibson during the opening 20 minutes.
“In the Nashville game we didn’t generate a lot and we didn’t get inside,” said Kings interim head coach Jim Hiller. “Tonight, you know you have that many opportunities, you throw the puck there, we were inside, again we faced an extremely hot goaltender. We’ll take that offensively. We’re not going to overthink that one.”
The Ducks also had dangerous chances among 11 first-period attempts, at times forcing Kings’ netminder David Rittich into uncomfortable scrambling situations.
Languishing second to last in the Pacific Division, the visitor’s broke through on the…
Read the full article here
