Kings at Maple Leafs: Fancy Stats are for Losers

The Kings lured everyone into a false sense of security by following up that 3–0 win against the New York Islanders with a crazy 6–0 win against the Montreal Canadiens.

With Ben Scrivens’ two consecutive shutouts, the Kings were in the middle of a goal-scoring dry patch, so no one got too comfortable. Heading into the game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, many Kings fans thought, “Oh, well, the Kings are a superb possession team, piece of cake,” and, “Those Maple Leafs sure are riding the regression train.” The Kings were destined to head into Toronto and wipe the ice with them. Former Kings goaltender Jonathan Bernier might be tough to crack, we all figured, but dang, them fancy stats. That puck control! Sing it loud; sing it proud.

Spoiler alert: the Leafs outshot the Kings, 39–23. The Leafs left that game with a 60 percent Fenwick for percentage to the Kings’ 40 percent. It was opposite day.

Extra Skater had the visual:

The good news there is that you can see the Kings managed to outdo the Leafs where it mattered the most in the end — goals scored.

During the first period, the Kings played like they were sleepy, but Martin Jones hadn’t gotten the memo about giving bad teams a chance. He stopped Nikolai Kulemin on a couple juicy scoring chances right in front.

Later, Peter Holland took a penalty for trying to hold Slava Voynov a little closer, a little tighter, and the Kings went on the power play. Bizarrely, they scored again. Two power play goals in two games! Oh, me! Oh, my. Jeff Carter and Mike Richards set it up, and Drew Doughty wristed the puck in net.

Doughty must have heard that Jake Muzzin was starting to get people talking and decided to make sure everybody still knew who was the top defenseman on the Kings team. Jim Fox was even impressed by a great Doughty moment in the defensive end during the opening period. Doughty held off a Leafs defenseman and still got the puck in the corner to make a perfect pass to Muzzin one-handed.

Jones stayed strong through the end of the first, and the Kings somehow managed to boost the number of games they’ve played without a goal against in the first period to 17. Apparently that means they’ve set an NHL record. What a strange, mostly inconsequential stat.

Luck ran out after the intermission. The Kings brushed off the magic of amazing second period play from the Montreal game and reverted back to sucking during middle frames. Daniel Carcillo turned the puck over to Phil Kessel — aka the worst Leafs player to do that around — who nearly scored against Jones point-blank, but a fortunate bounce allowed Regehr to clear the crease despite the puck slipping through Jones’ pads.

Then, Frazer McLaren laid out Colin Fraser and left him doing a great impression of Loki post-Hulk in “The Avengers.”

Whoa.

Same.

He left the game and didn’t return. The Kings said that he was being evaluated but gave no real injury details. Hopefully the damage isn’t too bad.

Jarret Stoll took his obligatory offensive zone penalty, and the Kings killed it off well. Willie Mitchell took his obligatory interference penalty, and Cody Franson tied it for the Maple Leafs with help from Phil Kessel and Jake Gardiner.

It was inevitable. It was whatever. The most unfortunate part about that goal against was that it ended Jones’ shutout streaking, forcing yet another Kings backup goaltender to fall short of Jonathan Quick’s record.

The Kings nearly got some life and scored again when a Carter-Doughty 2-on-1 opportunity arose, but just as Doughty went to score his second of the game, a fight began. Joffrey Lupul wanted some of Voynov’s affection, too, but Voynov was having none of it. They pushed each other around a bit in a way that was useless, but Voynov got up from the ground kind of handsomely, and that was worthwhile.

The second period ended eventually. Thankfully.

On the down side, the third period started several minutes later, and the Kings continued to look tired and sad. They had one shot on goal through almost half the period, and then the Leafs sco — wait, no, it was Carter and Carcillo with a 2-on-1! No one on the Leafs thought to start a fight fast enough this time, and Carter decided not to pass the puck back to Carcillo, because why would he? He scored.

Second shot on goal in the period, second goal of the game. Boom.

The Leafs tried to counter with a 2-on-1 of their own, but Muzzin broke it up. Really! He did.

I still spent the next several minutes anticipating when the Kings would give up a late goal to tie it. What else was I supposed to expect?

Well, I should’ve expected the third line. Tyler Toffoli took a shot, Bernier saved it, and Richards passed the rebound back to Toffoli. Instead of shooting again, Toffoli faked, passed to left, and Kyle Clifford took the next shot, scoring.

The scoreboard read 3–1 with two minutes left in regulation. It stayed that way right to the end, and the Kings fled the scene with two more points in the standings, bumping them up to second place in the Pacific Division.

It seems that Eastern Canada doesn’t stand a chance against the LA Kings, no matter what happens. If only the Toronto Maple Leafs were a team that could close against the Kings, like the Winnipeg Jets or the Calgary Flames.