The suddenly skidding Los Angeles Kings will shoot to salvage the finale of a three-game road trip Monday as they visit the Chicago Blackhawks.
Losers of three straight, Los Angeles had a brief respite Sunday after back-to-back road losses in Dallas and St. Louis to start the weekend.
Kings coach Jim Hiller is calling on the locker room to be resilient. Los Angeles still holds the third Pacific Division playoff spot but realizes this isn’t the time to fade.
“It’s a season where it goes up and down but when it goes down for a couple games, you’ve got to pull yourself out in a hurry,” Hiller said. “How do you do that? You got to say, ‘Well, it’s the beginning of March, still got lots of games, but we need to win and so there has to be a higher level of intensity, desperation … for the game.’
“You can’t manufacture that each and every game over 82, but now, you’ve got to pull that out and not just you, that whole entire team has to raise it for the next game.”
With a victory, Chicago can clinch the season series. The Blackhawks defeated the host Kings 4-3 in a shootout on Nov. 2, prevailing after Tyler Bertuzzi tied the game with 31 seconds left in regulation.
The Kings led 2-0 after two periods. They scored first again on Saturday in St. Louis behind Kevin Fiala’s team-best eighth power play goal of the season but were unable to sustain momentum as the Blues rolled 4-1.
“We’re going to have to tighten that up and make sure that the game in Chicago is obviously tighter and more Kings hockey,” Los Angeles captain Anze Kopitar said.
The Blackhawks avoided a winless three-game trip and stopped a five-game skid with Saturday’s 6-3 rout of the Anaheim Ducks.
Chicago’s relentless attack netted its league-best sixth goal at 5-on-3 en route to dealing the playoff-contending Ducks their first regulation loss this season when scoring three goals or more.
Four Blackhawks enjoyed multi-point efforts, displaying the kind of scoring diversity that coach Anders Sorensen has preached throughout a trying season. Ryan Donato, who sparked the offense with two goals and an assist, enters Monday on a four-game point streak (two goals, four assists) with points in eight of the past nine games.
“He’s been good here for a while,” Sorensen said. “No matter where we put him, if it’s on the wing or in the middle, he plays the game and he’s around the puck and he creates a lot, and I’m really happy with his game.”
Chicago, which traded defenseman Seth Jones to the Florida Panthers over the weekend in exchange for goalie Spencer Knight, hopes for continued production from its other blueliners down the stretch. TJ Brodie and Alec Martinez each earned assists against the Ducks, the 300th and 200th helpers of their respective careers.
Teuvo Teravainen has a four-game point streak (two goals, four assists) for Chicago, which is seeking its first home victory since Feb. 7.
–Field Level Media
