What we learned from the Kings’ 2-1 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils

A few more takeaways from the finale of the Kings’ five-game home stand, before they move on for what will be a busy week, starting with road games against two Central Division foes, Chicago and Dallas.

The Unstoppable Keith Kinkaid

OK, he’s not totally unstoppable.

Kings center Anze Kopitar in the second period managed to put one past Devils goalie Keith Kinkaid, who essentially befuddled them again. He shut out the Kings last month in New Jersey and now, with starter Cory Schneider out for an extended period, stymied the Kings in the first and third periods and overtime.

“Our guys are playing great in front of me,” Kinkaid said. “It’s not necessarily anything I’m doing. They’ve taken their big guys out of the game and not given them second chances.”

Slow starting ... again

The Kings obviously didn’t learn from their mistakes against the Devils last month. They allowed a power-play goal at New Jersey before the game was six minutes old and watched the Devils go into shut-down mode and were forced to chase the game. On Saturday, they fell behind even more quickly, giving up a goal at the 1:12 mark of the first period.

Kings captain Dustin Brown thought the game was lost in the opening 20 minutes.

“We didn’t have a very good first, and we were kind of battling to get back in it against a team that doesn’t give up much,” he said. “We got a point out of it, but we lost a point because of our first period, nothing else.

“I just don’t think we were ready to start.”

Underperforming power play

Despite falling behind early and despite the early lack of energy, the Kings had every opportunity to get back in the game. They had three power plays in the opening period and would go 0 for 5, in all.

The Devils put on a shot-blocking clinic, but Kopitar didn’t think the Kings demonstrated the proper amount of forcefulness with the man advantage.

“It’s a lot of things we weren’t doing,” Kopitar said. “Obviously no discredit to them. We know we can play a lot better, and we’re going to have to play a lot better. I don’t think we were aggressive enough.

”...We definitely didn’t get enough shots on it. And I don’t know what the totals were, but it seemed like we didn’t get enough pucks to the net.”