Jeff Misenti
On a brutal Thursday night Darcy Kuemper stopped all 19 shots he faced, shutting out the Vancouver Canucks in a 4-0 loss against the Los Angeles Kings at Rogers Arena.
According to NHL.com, the win snapped a four-game losing streak for Los Angeles and moved the Kings to within one point of the second Western Conference wild-card spot.
For the Kings, it was the kind of steady win a team in a playoff race needed. Kuemper’s clean sheet was his third shutout of the season and the 39th of his career.
For the Canucks, it looked like a franchise getting through the rounds by holding on to the rope. The truth is, the score could have been much worse. Kevin Lankinen finished with 34 saves, and that number only tells part of it.
The Kings were bigger, heavier, and more direct, and it kept forcing the Canucks into the kind of defensive shift that made a shutout inevitable.
Dominant Kings
At 17:34 of the first period, Scott Laughton opened the scoring on the power play with a deflection in front, after a Byfield shot from the right circle.
Before that, Kuemper had made a big stop on Teddy Blueger in the slot, and on reflection, that was the start and end of the night for the Canucks.
Moore made it 2-0 just 1:21 in on another tipped puck at the crease. Artemi Panarin then stretched it to 3-0 with 39 seconds left in the period after Adrian Kempe forced Jake DeBrusk into a neutral-zone turnover.
The Kings outshot the Canucks 32-12 through two periods, and Canucks coach Adam Foote said Los Angeles came out “big, heavy on pucks, and mean and hungry.” That sounds exactly like the game looked.
The Canucks never built enough offensive-zone time, and when it finally did get a decent late look, Kuemper turned aside a Drew O’Connor redirect from the top of the crease.
Soon after, Byfield scored into the empty net to finish it off. Simple hockey beat hopeful hockey.
Familiar ending
The Canucks have now lost four straight and finished their eight-game homestand at 2-6-0. They have dropped 14 of its last 17, and this was the sixth time the club has been shut out this season, including a fifth home shutout that tied a franchise record.
For Canucks fans, that’s the hard part now. It isn’t just losing. It’s how little room this team leaves itself once the game starts tilting the wrong way.
