After getting their five-game winning streak snapped with an ugly 7-0 loss to the Boston Bruins on Monday night, the Los Angeles Kings will begin a four-game trip Wednesday night with a key matchup in Dallas against the Stars.
The Kings (65 points) are second in the Pacific Division and are among more than a dozen Western Conference teams still battling for eight playoff spots.
Dallas begins Tuesday’s action in the second wild-card position with 61 points, the same number of points as Edmonton and two more than Anaheim.
So Wednesday’s contest could be a four-point swing in the playoff race for the two teams.
The Kings know they need to flush their Monday night performance and move forward.
“We’re upset,” winger Alex Iafallo said after the Kings’ worst loss in 12 years. “That’s a loss that we don’t want, to lose that big. We’re going to have to look ourselves in the mirror and learn from our mistakes. It was a good run, so at the same time we have to stay positive, but we have to come back tomorrow and be ready to rock and roll.”
The last time the Kings lost a game by seven goals was on Nov. 13, 2009, when the Atlanta Thrashers beat them 7-0.
“These losses, we have to learn from them quick,” Iafallo said. “We’re (upset). That’s a huge loss, and we’ve got to bounce back, stay positive and learn from our mistakes.”
Kings assistant coach Trent Yawney, who was behind the bench for the third straight game because head coach Todd McLellan is in COVID-19 protocol, agreed.
“It’s a tough league, and we can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” Yawney said. “Like someone said, you’ve just got to throw it in the garbage and move forward. … You don’t have too much time to dwell on one game, and you’ve got to get ready for Dallas now.”
The Kings, who have won six consecutive road games, have a chance to tie a team record against the Stars. Los Angeles has points in 10 straight road contests (8-0-2), one off the team mark.
Dallas, which is 19-7-1 at home, comes in off a 4-2 victory over Buffalo as Jake Oettinger made 38 saves and Michael Raffl scored a pair of goals Sunday. Denis Gurianov scored a power play goal at the 8:56 mark of the third period to make it 4-1 for the Stars, who are 11-4-1 over their past 16 games.
Despite the victory, Stars coach Rick Bowness was not happy with his team’s play in the final period, when Buffalo outshot the Stars 23-5.
“We’ve had some real good third periods, and we have third periods like that where we just back off,” Bowness said. “Not back off … we get individual and we stop playing as team. We make it way too easy for the other team to play. It’s something we’ve talked about and something we’ll keep pounding at them.”
After Wednesday’s contest, the Stars will begin a stretch in which they play seven of eight games on the road.
–Field Level Media