Kings’ struggles at home continue in shootout loss to Golden Knights
Jack Eichel scored the only goal in the shootout and the Vegas Golden Knights beat the Kings 4-3 on Saturday night to bounce back from their first loss of the season.
Mark Stone, Michael Amadio and William Carrier all scored in regulation for the Golden Knights, who improved to 8-0-1 one night after a 4-3 overtime defeat to the Chicago Blackhawks.
“You want to cash in as many points as you can early in the season,” Carrier said.
Logan Thompson made 29 saves through overtime before stopping all three attempts in the shootout. Thompson has saved 31 of 38 attempts (81.6%) in eight career shootouts.
The Kings score four unanswered goals and Drew Doughty scores the go-ahead goal in the final minutes of a 5-4 comeback win over the Arizona Coyotes.
“He likes the show, right?” Carrier said of Thompson’s shootout prowess. “We kind of knew if we were going there, we had a good chance of winning. He loves it. I mean, he’s young, he’s got the energy, and it feels great.”
Drew Doughty, Alex Laferriere and Trevor Lewis each had a goal for the Kings, who have dropped four of five at home to start the season. Cam Talbot finished with 27 saves.
“It was a pretty even contest,” Lewis said. “Obviously, shootout’s a shootout and anything can happen, but we fought hard. We would have liked to have come out with the two points.”
Doughty tied it up with 1:03 left in the third period on a slap shot from the blue line through traffic, his third goal in two games after securing a 5-4 comeback win at Arizona on Friday.
Stone put the Golden Knights ahead 3-2 on the power play 6:26 into the third, tucking his one-timer from the right circle into the top netting. Vegas has scored at least three goals in each of its first nine games.
After falling behind 2-0 early in the second on Lewis’ second goal in three games, the Golden Knights finally found their offensive touch with Amadio putting a rebound into an open net and Carrier putting his wrist shot off the post and in for his first point of the season.
“We knew we had a lot of work to do,” Carrier said. “It felt a lot like a playoff game out there.”
The Kings opened the scoring for the first time in four home games when Laferriere followed up Pierre-Luc Dubois’ rebound 13:13 into the first. Playing on his 22nd birthday, Laferriere netted his second goal and point in eight career games.
It allowed Los Angeles to play with the early lead for the third time in their opening eight games, although it took some alert goaltending from Talbot to turn away Eichel’s breakaway less than two minutes into the game to avoid another deficit.
“We did a better job of not giving up too many Grade-A’s, and when we did Talbs was there to shut the door,” Lewis said. “No, it was a good effort. We wish would have had both points, but we’ll move on.”
Kings center Anze Kopitar played in his 1,300th career game, joining Hurricanes defenseman Brent Burns, Capitals center Alex Ovechkin and Stars defenseman Ryan Suter as the only active players to reach the milestone.
Up next for the Kings: at Toronto on Tuesday night.
