The Los Angeles Kings put together one of their finest periods of hockey against the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday. Then, they called it a night.
In a period where the Kings outshot (9-5) and out-attempted (11-7) the Avalanche, Adrian Kempe made sure they outscored them too. He struck twice in the first period, his 6th and 7th of the season, to send LA into the first intermission with a 2-1 lead.
From that point on, it was all Colorado. Mikko Rantanen tied the game in the second period with his 10th of the season, as he got behind Kings defensemen Jordan Spence for a breakaway, set up with a marvelous stretch pass from Cale Makar.
If the first was one of the Kings best periods of the season, the second period may have been their absolute worst. Colorado outshot LA 13-0 and out-attempted LA 26-10. Of the 13 shots the Avalanche put on net, 12 were registered as scoring chances per Natural Stat Trick. They also held the Kings to 0.23 xGF, which was somehow 0.03 better than what LA would have in the final 20 minutes.
In the third period, Darcy Kuemper left the game after suffering an apparent lower-body injury. While Kings coach Jim Hiller did not provide an update after the game, it would be fair to speculate that the injury could be related to the one that kept Kuemper out for 5 games earlier in the season.
On the first shot Dave Rittich faced after taking over for Kuemper, Rantanen beat him down low for the winger’s 11th of the season and the eventual game-winning goal at 10:01 of the third period.
With Rittich at the bench, Rantanen sealed the game with the hat trick goal into the empty net. Unofficially, the Kings went 23:13 of game time without recording a shot on goal between the first and third periods. The last time they were held without a shot in a single period was March 31, 2011, when they were blanked in the third period by the Vancouver Canucks.
The Kings dropped to 9-6-3 on the season and fell to second place in the Pacific Division. This was the first time they’ve lost consecutive games since October 14th in Ottawa. They will travel back to Los Angeles for a three-game homestand, with multi-day breaks between each contest.
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