Kings: Three Takeaways from Devastating Loss to Blues

The Los Angeles Kings have been making a push for the playoffs in the Western Conference.

The Los Angeles Kings had an opportunity to close the gap of three points that separated them from the St. Louis Blues in the chase for the last wild card in the Western Conference standings. Before a sold out crowd (including this writer), the Kings squandered the opportunity losing 3-1.

Leaving little room for error with 14 games left in the season the Kings are now in jeopardy of missing the playoffs for the second time in three years.  Three reasons they lost the game can easily encapsulate their season to this point.

Lack of Goals

For most of the game the Kings were able to challenge the Blues peppering goalie Jake Allen but it wasn’t until they  had their backs to the wall down 2-0 that the Kings scored a goal, too little to late with three minutes left in the game.

At the trade deadline when general manager Dean Lombardi was questioned about the lack of scoring offense, he said any help would have to come from within.  It still hasn’t materialized as the team still lacks the secondary scoring, being the reason that they are in the bottom ten in league scoring.

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Special Teams

The Kings seemed to have turned around their problem with scoring on the power play the previous two games, they scored four power play goals in that span.  Against the Blues they had three opportunities score with a man advantage and changing the momentum of the game, conversely the Kings gave up a power play goal down 1-0 that made the third period a steep hill to climb.  On a night when they needed a win, the team’s special teams play let them down.

Penalties

For the season Los Angeles are good at staying out of the penalty box but against the Blues the Kings took penalties at terrible times.  Jeff Carters’ holding penalty lead to the Blues PPG putting the team down 2-0, and when the Kings were trying to make a comeback Drew doughty had a delay of game penalty stifling LA’s offense for another two minutes.

Next: Three Trade Partners for Andre Ethier

Los Angeles can’t stay down for long they will play the Coyotes Tuesday night, they’ll have to move on from their loss or continue to watch their season slip away.