Los Angeles Kings’ 4-1 loss against the Sharks by the numbers
By Jamaal Artis
The Los Angeles Kings went into their bye week looking lost on the ice and have come out of it looking like they forgot how to play hockey. For the second consecutive game they lost to a rival — this time the San Jose Sharks — at home and it wasn’t even close.
In both games, the Los Angeles Kings have looked sloppy and slow, while the San Jose Sharks were able to make cross-ice passes from tape to tape, the Kings couldn’t make a simple pass from player to player.
From the first few minutes it was evident who the better team on the ice was, it’s no wonder the Kings lost 4-1.
Here was the game by the numbers:
1
One is the loneliest number is not just a song from the 60’s it also represented the number of penalties the Kings were able to draw against the Sharks. The penalty didn’t come until the end of the third period, not a good sign for a team playing from behind all game.
It’s not surprising that the Kings couldn’t draw a penalty as it seemed most of the possession time belonged to Sharks, before the third period the Sharks were outshooting the Kings 28-13.
35
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Despite looking inept for two periods the Kings somehow turned it on in the third period and ended up outshooting the Sharks. It did not matter as former Kings goalie Martin Jones stymied the Kings the whole game including one on one stop of Kyle Clifford that could have tied the game at 1 all in the second period.
Jones has been superb against his former teammates going 9-3-2 in 14 career appearances against them. This game was no different even as the Kings outshot the Sharks 17 to 5 in the third period, the more the Kings came at Jones the better he got.
5-7-3
That’s the record the Kings have against their divisional opponents, against the rest of the league the Kings are 19-8-2. That’s not a good sign when the Kings have 14 games left against Pacific division opponents. If the Kings want to make the playoffs they can’t continue to struggle within the division or risk the chance of missing the playoffs again.
1 million
The number of four letter expletives I yelled during the game. Just kidding, I took my seven-year-old son to the game and his mother would have killed me if she knew I was cursing in front of him. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about it.
Next: Kings' mid-season report
It’s no coincidence that the Los Angeles Kings current four-game losing streak coincided with an injury to Jake Muzzin their second best defenseman on the team. The team has been struggling for a while losing 9 of 13 games since an eight game winning streak ended in early December. The Kings have dropped down to third in the Pacific division if they don’t right the ship soon they may be on the outside looking in on the playoffs again.