The Los Angeles Kings hoped that Kevin Fiala’s return would offer a much-needed increase to a struggling crew. As an alternative, they discover themselves reaching new ranges of disappointment, albeit by no fault of the Swiss ahead making his return to the ice following 9 months off resulting from damage.
Though Fiala had an help and a few bodily performs all through the sport, the Kings’ 5-2 loss to the New York Islanders extends their dropping streak to 3 video games and leaves them with simply as many questions, if no more, than they’d earlier than Fiala got here again.
“For me, simply getting within the recreation, that’s very thrilling. Very completely satisfied about that, clearly,” Fiala mentioned. “However on the finish of the day, it’s about [winning] video games.”
Though the Kings obtained the vast majority of the sport’s scoring probabilities, the tip consequence was all the identical because the Islanders took benefit of their alternatives higher than the Kings did, and Los Angeles dropped to 5-10-2 on the season.
“I don’t even know what to say,” Kings defenseman and captain Drew Doughty mentioned. “Tonight I believed we had a great effort. I believed we performed some good hockey, however then there’s simply, like, little moments within the recreation.”
“There was 4 completely different the reason why they scored objectives on the market,” head coach Peter Laviolette added (the Islanders’ fifth objective was an empty-netter). “However for many of the recreation, the photographs and the probabilities have been on our lead. There’d be one thing that we might have completed higher, and it’s at the back of our internet. It’s a defensive zone protection. It’s a line change objective. It’s an influence play objective. It’s an off the push objective. It’s simply irritating.”
Doughty emphasised his perception that the Kings’ points come right down to execution, relatively than any downside with the teaching employees.
“I believe, the techniques, everyone knows them by now,” he mentioned. “We’re all doing them fairly properly. It’s simply one-on-one moments, and actually, that’s what’s hurting us.”
A lot of the query now turns into whether or not the Kings’ season is past redemption or if they will transfer into a spot of competition and constant profitable with small enhancements. Naturally, the crew hopes it’s the latter.
“I believe they killed our momentum somewhat bit with that fourth objective,” Fiala mentioned. “In essential moments, we’ve to indicate up, we’ve to play higher, extra determined, higher particulars and all that. So general, I believe we’ve been enjoying good. However the small step, it’s not distant.”
The Kings know they don’t have lengthy to avoid wasting their season, and Doughty tried his greatest to stay optimistic on his outlook for his or her upcoming video games.
“We’re losing time proper now,” he mentioned. “Subsequent recreation, it has to occur. It begins with follow tomorrow. We have now to have a great follow, work exhausting, work out our stuff, and are available for that subsequent recreation, win that, after which have one hell of a street journey. However I imagine that we’ve the blokes within the room proper now to do it.”
If so, they haven’t confirmed it but. And they’re nonetheless looking for solutions. Laviolette, who locations worth on his crew having an identification, admits the Kings don’t actually have one proper now.
“I believe we’ve been far too inconsistent with our recreation. We’re not profitable video games,” he mentioned. “The identification, any identification that you simply wish to instill in a crew, you need it to be in a profitable method, and so due to this fact, we’re not anyplace close to the place we have to be. We gotta proceed to work at it and push at it. Like I mentioned, there’s good issues that we did on the ice tonight, however we made sufficient errors to lose a hockey recreation, and proper now that’s type of the best way it’s been. We’ve obtained to proceed to work to scrub it up, proceed to try to discover methods to create and rating, [and] play higher.”
The Kings conclude their seven-game homestand on Saturday at 7 p.m. in opposition to the Calgary Flames earlier than starting a five-game street journey.