Grundstrom, Danault and Kopitar rating as Kings construct lead and maintain on to beat Senators 3-2
OTTAWA, Ontario — Anze Kopitar scored halfway via the second interval to assist Los Angeles construct a three-goal lead and the Kings held on to beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Thursday night time.
Carl Grundstrom and Philip Danault additionally scored and Adrian Kempe had two assists for the Kings, who’ve gained the primary two video games on their four-game journey and improved to 6-2-2 on the season. Cam Talbot, who spent final season in Ottawa, had 24 saves towards his former group.
“That was a good game from our side tonight,” Kempe mentioned. “Obviously they got here again on the finish and it was tighter than we wished it to be. But I feel we’ve had some video games this 12 months the place it’s been a one-goal sport on the finish of the second interval and I feel we’ve been doing a very good job of that.
“Every line is managing the puck really well.”
Dominik Kubalik and Josh Norris had targets for Ottawa, and Joonas Korpisalo completed with 36 saves towards his former group.
“The mistakes we made that went in the net are just mistakes,” mentioned Senators coach D.J. Smith, who coached his three hundredth sport. “That’s bad reads or not enough poise or what have you … for us to win games, you can use short-handed (play) as an excuse, but that ain’t going to fix anything. We’re gonna have to be airtight defensively.”
The Kings opened the scoring with a power-play purpose three minutes in when Danault tallied from in shut.
Los Angeles doubled its lead on the 5-minute mark of the second interval. Kempe picked up the puck at his personal blue line, got here down the wing and fed Grundstrom, who beat Korpisalo.
Kopitar was the beneficiary of Andreas Englund’s rebound for his fifth purpose of the season at 8:55 of the center interval to make it 3-0.
“We have a pretty good idea of how we need to play,” Kings coach Todd McLellan mentioned. “Sometimes bounces don’t go your way, their second goal hits (Kopitar) in the face and a little bit of bad luck, but for the most part, I think we can play tight, uncomfortable games.”
The Senators acquired on the board with Kubalik’s power-play purpose with 21 seconds to go within the second.
Norris tipped Jacob Bernard-Docker’s shot at 4:09 of the third to tug Ottawa inside one, however they couldn’t get the equalizer.
“I don’t think the game was a bad game by any means,” mentioned Ottawa defenseman Travis Hamonic, who performed in his 800th NHL sport. “But those are the close ones that you do need, especially at this time of year because they all matter and it matters at the end.”
Ottawa performed a lot of the sport down two gamers after Ridly Greig appeared to jam his proper leg early within the first interval, and Mark Kastelic misplaced an edge, went down onerous to the ice early within the second and was unable to place any weight on his proper leg.
Smith didn’t have an replace after the sport however mentioned they appear to be uncertain for the subsequent few video games.
“I think we would have liked to have been a little sharper in the second period and be a little bit more mature,” Norris mentioned. “But we had a couple guys go down and guys had to step up and play some bigger minutes.”
UP NEXT
Kings: At Philadelphia on Saturday night time within the third of a four-game journey.
Senators: Host Tampa Bay on Saturday night time to complete a two-game homestand.
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