The Los Angeles Kings certainly continued their strong play against Vegas on Wednesday into Saturday afternoon’s game against the Chicago Blackhawks. The only problem was that they couldn’t maintain that effort for more than 60 minutes.
Three different Blackhawks scored in the third period to erase two LA leads (2-0, 3-2) and force overtime, with the Kings generating several unsuccessful, dangerous looks.
All three Blackhawks shooters beat goaltender Darcy Kuemper in the shootout as the Kings came away with just one point in a game where they probably should have gone to two.
For the Kings, Alex Laferriere continued his attacking onslaught with his seventh and eighth goals of the season.
Philip Danault finally broke through for his first of the campaign – a goal that seemed destined to be the game-winner with 8:52 left in the third period.
But with 31 seconds left in regulation time, Tyler Bertuzzi tied the game on a play that started with a failed clearance attempt by Kuemper and ended with a puck that went by Vladislav Gavrikov and found Bertuzzi’s stick at the goal mouth.
The Kings dominated shot attempts (60.3%) and high danger attempts (72.73%) throughout the match, holding Chicago to just 0.9 xGoals at even strength. Hockey is a funny game after all. LA let the Blackhawks hang around long enough for the momentum to shift with one shot. And that’s exactly what happened at 3:26 of the third period when Nick Foligno fired a puck from the top of the circles that snuck through Kuemper — a goal the veteran netminder would love to take a Mulligan on.
Two minutes later, Craig Smith tied the game at 2 with a quick release that beat Kuemper on the blocker side.
The Kings (6-3-3) now hit the road for a quick back-to-back set. They face the struggling Nashville Predators (3-6-1) on Wednesday and one of the top teams in the NHL, the Minnesota Wild (7-1-2), on Thursday.
