Adrian Kempe’s late goal against Lightning powers Kings to ninth straight home win
LOS ANGELES — Kings forward Trevor Lewis’ 1,000th game was just like the other 999: improbable, unspectacular and, above all, successful.
The Kings squeaked past the Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1, at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday evening, snatching a victory from a game they had little business winning save for their savvy and swagger, which have helped them capture nine straight decisions at home.
That is three shy of the franchise record, set in the 1992-93 season when the Kings reached the Stanley Cup Final (the all-time record is the 2011-12 Detroit Red Wings’ 23 straight).
“The fans can play a big factor in that,” Mikey Anderson said. “But even the way we’ve won those games, some have been a complete 60 minutes where we felt like we were on top of it the whole time, or in a game like today, maybe we didn’t have it for the majority of the game, but we still found a way to get one where we needed it, lock ‘er down and come away with the win.”
Anderson and Adrian Kempe each lit the lamp for the Kings. Kempe broke a 1-1 stalemate that spanned most of the match with less than six minutes to play. Darcy Kuemper turned in a superb performance with 33 saves, including several with a high degree of difficulty. Lewis wasn’t the only King or even the only Trevor to return from injury, as Trevor Moore played for the first time since Dec. 12.
Victor Hedman scored just 1:09 into the game for Tampa Bay, which was quieted by Kuemper for the rest of the night. Andrei Vasilevskiy pumped the brakes on 19 shots.
Game No. 1,000 for Lewis, a 2006 first-rounder who won two Stanley Cups with the Kings, was all the more remarkable because of the way Lewis reached the milestone. A trusted checker and penalty killer with limited scoring punch (101 goals and 232 points) and just six NHL fights, his offensive totals were lower than those of any other forward that reached the 1,000-game mark without accumulating at least 2,000 penalty minutes.
“It’s hard to get there, because the style of game that those players have is such a physical game, it’s a grinding game, so your body is on the line,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “For these guys to play a thousand games, you’ve got to stay healthy. Never mind still having skills, legs and the ability to contribute, you’ve got to stay healthy and when you’re a physical player like that, it makes it really difficult.”
Lewis skated alongside Kempe and captain Anže Kopitar in the dying embers to help protect Kuemper’s lead. Due in part to an injury to Joel Edmundson — he would return to the bench but not the game after being undercut while leaping to knock down a clearing attempt — Anderson played most of the third period, including the final 2:44 consecutively.
In addition to his cohorts on the ice, several old chums from the Kings’ glory days were in the building, including former captain Dustin Brown and the recently retired Jeff Carter, to honor Lewis.
“It’s awesome. It means the world to me for these guys to come and celebrate it with me,” Lewis said.
“To grind it out and get a win was even more special,” he added.
Though the Kings owed the very opportunity to win the game in the third period to Kuemper and the work of Anderson, they snagged two points from the third period.
After failing to convert on one rush, they generated another. Tampa Bay’s Nathan Perbix took a spill in the neutral zone to give the Kings an odd-man attack momentarily. Perbix caught up to Alex Turcotte and attempted to tie up his stick, but Turcotte managed to slip the puck to a trailing Kempe, who rifled home his team-leading 19th goal of the campaign with 5:48 to play.
“Darcy gave us a chance to even have a chance,” Hiller said. “Great play by (Turcotte), we needed somebody to make a play. (Turcotte) made a great play, (Kempe) finished and then we hung on by our fingertips.”
The second period saw nothing in the way of scoring, though the Kings did earn the stanza’s only power play, as Tampa did in the first. Having inserted three new players — Moore, Lewis and defenseman Andreas Englund in his first action in nearly two months — the Kings looked disjointed more often than not.
Through 40 minutes, Natural Stat Trick scored Tampa Bay as having 88% of the high-danger chances in the contest and a 72% share of expected goals, despite the actual score remaining 1-1.
In the first period, Anderson scored two goals: one for each side.
Just 69 seconds into the match, Hedman’s low-flying shot from distance banked off Anderson’s stick and into the net.
Anderson would have that favor returned when his own long-range rip, off a faceoff win by Phillip Danault, glanced off Brayden Point’s skate before beating Vasilevskiy inside the far post, 7:58 after the opening faceoff.
The Lightning out-shot the Kings 11-4 in the opening frame and carried play for extended periods.
“You look at the totality of the game and we couldn’t have played a better road game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said, stating during his interview that the Kings’ coaching staff would likely concur.
Indeed they did.
“That was probably our most lopsided game, frankly, it wasn’t a great game for us,” Hiller said. “After the second period, our forwards, as a group, had four shots on net. Darcy stole it.”