LOS ANGELES –– They might not be the prettiest team in the league, but the Kings were looking more like themselves in a victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday night.
On paper, it was a three-goal game, but for all intents and purposes, it was a hermetically sealed affair with a single goal separating the sides for most of the night and little available speed or space for either squad.
“I’ll take any win, you know me. But I think we played to our identity,” Coach Jim Hiller said. “You have to start there and you can’t come off that. We’re gonna start scoring goals, I really believe that.”
Thursday night, they’ll square off with the contemporary definition of a club with a strong identity and a win-at-any-cost mentality, the Florida Panthers (6-6-1, 13 points). They’ve won the Eastern Conference title three years in a row and captured consecutive Stanley Cup titles. Their offseason saw them keep the band together – they re-signed Sam Bennett, Aaron Ekblad and Brad Marchand – only to lose their two best players, Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, to injuries.
A player who would certainly fit into the tenacious, surly and ruthless mix the Panthers have put together is Corey Perry. The former Ducks star stayed hot Tuesday despite the low-scoring affair, drawing a 4-minute minor for a grisly high stick before vaulting back over the boards and, on his subsequent shift, setting up Kevin Fiala’s power-play goal.
“He just went to the bench, and then he came back for the next whistle, all bloody in the face and everything,” said Adrian Kempe, who also scored Tuesday. “He’s a veteran, he’s a grinder, he works hard and it pays off.”
Defenseman Drew Doughty, whose empty-net goal elevated him to first place on the all-time leaderboard for goals by a Kings blue-liner, liked the effort, but he wants the Kings (6-4-4, 16 points) to quit eating soup with a fork offensively.
“I definitely think we’re on track, but we definitely need to score more goals,” Doughty said. “We can’t be having a 1-0 lead. I mean, we can, but it’s not ideal. We want to have a two- or three-goal lead going into the third period and have situations like that. It’s hard to hold onto a one-goal lead – all of a sudden, one shot goes in and everything deflates.”
Doughty was one of several figures in both locker rooms Tuesday who applauded the Kings’ penalty kill, stating he couldn’t even recall any sterling chances for one of the league’s top power plays in its five opportunities. Yet he twice emphasized the lack of corresponding scoring support, saying the Kings waited too long to obtain any type of “insurance.”
The Kings barely crack the top 20 in points from defensemen. Brandt Clarke and, to a lesser degree, Doughty have been impactful offensively, combining for 12 points. Joel Edmundson is the only other remotely productive scorer on the back end, but his five points have all come on secondary assists. Mikey Anderson and newcomers Cody Ceci and Brian Dumoulin have combined for just six points, one fewer than Clarke has recorded by himself.
“We’re trying. I don’t think any of us on the defensive end are happy with our lack of production back there,” Doughty said. “We’re trying to get in there, trying to keep more pucks alive, trying to join the rush and trying to get shots through. We can do a better job as D, and, as a unit, finding the D more.”
PANTHERS AT KINGS
When: Thursday, 7 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/radio: ESPN+, Hulu