Kings, Bruins Litter Ice With Mistakes

LOS ANGELES — “Every mistake just went in.”

To be sure, that was the understatement of the year, courtesy of Los Angeles Kings rookie goaltender Jonathan Bernier following his team’s 8-6 loss to the Boston Bruins in front of an announced crowd of 17,064 fans at Staples Center on Friday night.

But those words could have come from Bruins goaltender Manny Fernandez just as easily, as both teams traded sloppy play and defensive miscues.

“We played the guys we had to get better at finishing, and we were much better,” said Bruins head coach Claude Julien. “Unfortunately, we forgot about the other end of our game. Our defensive play was poor. I felt sorry for Manny. He was left alone out there.”

But it was the Kings who made more of the glaring errors, leaving Bernier alone more often than the Bruins abandoned Fernandez.

“We left him alone on a lot of those chances,” said Kings head coach Marc Crawford.

“We hung him out to dry,” said Kings defenseman and team captain Rob Blake. “[Bruins center Marc] Savard was wide open there on the penalty-kill. They had a couple of tic-tac-toe plays, passes across the crease,” said Blake. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Martin Brodeur in there, those goals are going in.”

Indeed. On the play Blake mentioned, the Bruins were on the power play and Savard was left all alone at the bottom of the right circle with the Kings’ penalty-killers totally lost—they were all on the left side of the ice, leaving the entire right wing uncovered.

Savard had a huge game, helping lead the way for Boston with a goal and four assists, but was overshadowed by Phil Kessel, who not only opened the scoring with a goal at 16:54 of the first period, but wound up with three goals—a hat trick—and an assist.

“It was pretty exciting,” said Kessel, who recorded his first National Hockey League hat trick. “It was one of those nights. I got lucky on a couple.”

“We just went out there and played hard, got some bounces, and things happened for us,” added Kessel. “We had eight goals, which was good for our offense, but we’ve got to clean up the defense. Giving up six goals doesn’t cut it.”

Three of those goals came on seven power play opportunities.

“We capitalized on every power play chance, it seemed,” said Savard. “We’ve got the weapons. We’ve got the guys who can move the puck around and we’ve got a good mix of right-handed and left-handed shots.”

It seemed like they scored at will on the power play because they did, thanks to some extremely poor penalty-killing by the Kings.

“It was terrible,” Blake said about his team’s penalty-killing. “I don’t know what they had…four power play goals? They probably should’ve had more.”

“They were passing it around like it was nothing,” Blake lamented. “Our penalty-kill had been pretty solid, but tonight we were totally off. We didn’t do enough to stop them.”

And that was the case at even-strength as well.

“It’s disappointing, we weren’t good enough tonight,” said Crawford. “That’s something we’ve got to take full responsibility for. Myself, as a coach, when your team is giving up the types of chances we’re giving up, we’ve got to make sure we do a better job of playing away from the puck in the defensive zone, and we’ve got to limit the number of penalties we’re taking. I’ve got to take a lot of responsibility for that.”

Without question, the blunders in the defensive zone have been glaring and seem to be fundamental mistakes.

“It’s pretty obvious,” Blake explained. “You don’t want to be 1-4 by any means. Unfortunately, we put ourselves in that position. I don’t think other teams have done that much to beat us.”

“It was very chaotic,” Blake added. “You saw the third period. Being down 4-1 and you tie it up 5-5, we should’ve had the momentum there. It’s mistakes that are caused by us right now. The other team’s not making us make those mistakes.”

Indeed, the Kings found themselves down 4-1 midway through the second period, but clawed their way back to a 5-5 tie when Kings center Anze Kopitar scored his second goal of the game on the power play at 8:19.

But just a little more one minute later, the Kings took another penalty and then left the entire right side of the ice uncovered with Savard all alone at the bottom of the right circle, as reported earlier.

“Tonight, we had too many pucks that didn’t get cleared and we allowed them to be on the power play and they’ve got a great power play, and that taxed our guys a little too much,” said Crawford.

Crawford changed up the forward line combinations and defensive pairs for this game, trying to light a spark under his team.

“When you’re not winning, there’s going to be different combinations, different defensive pairs, different forwards,” said Blake. Whoever’s going is going to play. We need to understand that as a team. If you’re playing well, you’re going to play. We don’t have the luxury of having the top lines like some other teams in the league right now. Whoever’s going is going to go, and we understand that in here.”

Offensively, Crawford wanted to get players like Alexander Frolov and Ladislav Nagy going, and to that end, he got his wish.

Frolov contributed three assists and was strong on the puck throughout the game, while Nagy tallied two assists.

“We got a little bit more from some people offensively,” said Crawford. “Frolov was better, [Derek] Armstrong was better. I thought [Michael] Cammalleri played a real strong game. Kopitar and [Dustin] Brown were great. Those guys gave us a little bit more offensive production.”

But defensively…the Kings got a great big “F.”

To read the full story, click on: Kings, Bruins Litter Ice With Mistakes

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