Through two periods against the Vegas Golden Knights, Artemi Panarin gave the Los Angeles Kings pretty much exactly what they had hoped for when they traded for him. Unfortunately for the Kings, hockey games are three periods long.
Panarin posted two assists in his Kings debut, but a disastrous third period in which Vegas scored five goals, including one empty-netter, and allowed the Knights to take control of the game as the Kings fell 6-4. The loss was made even more brutal by the fact that Vegas was resting a number of key players to give them more time to recover from the Olympics.
“Obviously, they still played really good,” said forward Quinton Byfield, who scored two goals. “All the guys checked hard, played hard, but missing their top guys is an opportunity that we can’t miss.”
The third period included a four-minute sequence in which the Kings allowed three goals in rapid succession to trail 4-2. Vegas generated significant momentum from this time, with each goal clearly leading to the next one, and the Kings were caught off-balance by the turn of events.
“We had an opportunity, clearly, to win the game, and made three mistakes, I guess, in four minutes,” head coach Jim Hiller said. “And all three of them ended up in the back of our net.”
Although the Kings made it a one-goal game on two occasions in the period, Vegas had a response both times to put the game away, making the result rougher for a Los Angeles team defined by defense who so rarely puts up four-goal efforts. Even worse, the Kings did so on just 19 shots and still couldn’t turn that into a win.
“They made it hard on us to create a lot of chances, but we can’t give them five goals,” Hiller said. “That’s where the breakdown is. It’s not the fact that we didn’t get seven. It’s the fact that we gave them five — I don’t count the empty net. So it’s a combination of things, for sure.”
As for Panarin, his performance was the biggest bright spot for the Kings. Playing mostly on a line with Adrian Kempe and Alex Laferriere, he assisted on each of the team’s first two goals, making good passes throughout the night and running much of their only power play to help create a goal.
“I think he gave us what he’s going to give us,” Hiller said of the new forward. “That line together, despite playing their first game, I thought [it] looked like they had chemistry. They moved the puck around between the three of them pretty well. So that’s probably the positive from the evening. But he’s a great player. You saw that tonight, and you’ve seen that for the last 10, 12 years in the league.”
Panarin has been around the team for a few weeks without playing a game due to being traded right at the start of the Olympic break. Now he jumps into the intensity of a push for the playoffs, what is now a 25-game sprint for the Kings to earn a postseason spot they currently don’t have.
“My career has been full of pressure a lot of the time, and I’ve been used to that pressure,” Panarin said via an interpreter. “So it’s gonna continue, getting used to the system.”
But with so few games left, the Kings know they can’t afford to drop many more games like this one. Their stretch run continues tomorrow night against another divisional opponent, the Edmonton Oilers.
“Obviously this one hurts, but gotta keep moving forward,” Byfield said. “And tomorrow’s a massive game as well. They’re right there in the standings as well. So we’re trying to try to make a run here and get in.”