Column: Kings’ bad habits carry over into playoff opener
Kings goalie Jonathan Quick stops the shot of Sharks center Tommy Wingels during the second period of Game 1.
Asked Thursday morning whether the Kings’ strong penalty killing and the San Jose Sharks’ potent power play would carry over into the teams’ playoff opener, Kings Coach Darryl Sutter insisted both teams would start at zero and with a new slate.
“Nothing comes out of the regular season that carries over in the playoffs,” he said. “I think the playoffs, everybody resets.”
That didn’t prove true for the Kings on Thursday. The defensive gaffes and uncertainty that too often plagued them during the regular season carried over to their first playoff game since their 2014 Stanley Cup triumph, undermining them in a 4-3 loss at Staples Center.
“We weren’t very good. We just weren’t very good,” team captain Dustin Brown said. “Everyone can be better. So it’s just a matter again, this is the time of year when you can’t dwell on it. You learn from it and go on. We’ve got a lot left in us.
“Tonight was not how we wanted to start the series. We have a chance to regroup and even the series on Saturday.”
As Sutter lamented, the Kings twice gave up goals soon after defensive-zone faceoff losses, once when Joel Ward bested Jeff Carter and got the puck back to Brent Burns for a shot through traffic at 6:50 of the second period and again early in the third period to allow the Sharks to take a 4-3 lead. Joe Pavelski outdueled Anze Kopitar on that draw and got the puck back to Justin Braun, who found Pavelski for a wraparound that was uncontested by Kopitar and the rest of the slow-reacting Kings.
“A center-on-center goal,” Sutter called the decisive goal, a pet peeve of his.
To Brown, the dagger was San Jose’s third goal, by Tomas Hertl, 30 seconds after a fine short-handed effort by Trevor Lewis had given the Kings a 3-2 lead at 17:18 of the second period. “The big momentum goal was that goal we gave up right after,” Brown said of Hertl’s goal, which was scored on the rebound of a shot by Joel Ward. “We had all the momentum on a penalty-kill goal. Just little things.”
Those little things added up to a big problem for the Kings. And they soon faced another problem when defenseman Alec Martinez, back in the lineup after sitting out the last few regular-season games because of an undisclosed injury, didn’t play in the third period. Secrecy regarding injuries is heightened at this time of year, so Sutter wouldn’t elaborate on Martinez’s status. “Once we got down a defenseman that was their chance,” he said. “Again, it was two faceoff goals. They scored four goals on 23 shots. We have to be better than that.”
And spare the jokes, too, about the Kings having the Sharks where they want them, leading a playoff series. The Sharks team that squandered a 3-0 series led over the Kings in the first round in 2014 is different from the group that played an energetic and purposeful game Thursday. Supposedly in the middle of a rebuild this season, the Sharks have had fewer expectations, which might allow them to finally live up to the potential they’ve never maximized.
Coach Peter DeBoer, who coached the New Jersey Devils in 2012 when they lost to the Kings in the Cup final, said the Sharks’ two-year-old series loss wasn’t a topic of conversation among his players before this series began. There were no demons to banish, no elephant in the locker room to move out of the way.
“For me this is a new experience. There’s 10 different players and a whole new coaching staff,” he said. “I haven’t spent any time at all on that. I don’t see the benefit of it. From a team point of view we’ve spent no time on that.”
No, they’ve spent time playing well on the road, a habit they managed to carry over from the regular season. “We’re trying to win the Stanley Cup. We’re going to have to win in tough buildings,” said Martin Jones, who got his name on the Cup in 2014 as Jonathan Quick’s backup.
The Kings didn’t make it tough enough for the Sharks to win at Staples Center on Thursday. They can’t let that be their downfall.
Follow Helene Elliott on Twitter: @helenenothelen
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