Written by Helene Elliott at Los Angeles Times.com
Asked Thursday morning whether the Kings’ strong penalty killing and the San Jose Sharks’ potent power play would carry over into the teams’ playoff opener, Kings Coach Darryl Sutter insisted both teams would start at zero and with a new slate.
“Nothing comes out of the regular season that carries over in the playoffs,” he said. “I think the playoffs, everybody resets.”
That didn’t prove true for the Kings on Thursday. The defensive gaffes and uncertainty that too often plagued them during the regular season carried over to their first playoff game since their 2014 Stanley Cup triumph, undermining them in a 4-3 loss at Staples Center.
“We weren’t very good. We just weren’t very good,” team captain Dustin Brown said. “Everyone can be better. So it’s just a matter again, this is the time of year when you can’t dwell on it. You learn from it and go on. We’ve got a lot left in us.
“Tonight was not how we wanted to start the series. We have a chance to regroup and even the series on Saturday.”
As Sutter lamented, the Kings twice gave up goals soon after defensive-zone faceoff losses, once when Joel Ward bested Jeff Carter and got the puck back to Brent Burns for a shot through traffic at 6:50 of the second period and again early in the third period to allow the Sharks to take a 4-3 lead. Joe Pavelski outdueled Anze Kopitar on that draw and got the puck back to Justin Braun, who found Pavelski for a wraparound that was uncontested by Kopitar and the rest of the slow-reacting Kings.
“A center-on-center goal,” Sutter called the decisive goal, a pet peeve of his.
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