FINAL – Kings 5, Blue Jackets 6 (OT) – Kempe, McLellan

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• News post

• Zach Dooley

The Kings picked up a point in Columbus, but fell again in overtime, tonight by a 6-5 final on Sunday evening at Nationwide Arena.

• Anze Kopitar
• Adrian Kempe

• Todd McLellan

# Adrian Kempe

Yeah, a good first and third period, in the second period obviously we played too risky, I felt like we gave up too many chances 5-on-5 and when we were on the power play. That was the game. We have to put together a full 60 to win and maybe we could have got away with two tonight, but obviously not good enough in the second period.

I think in the first and third periods we showed that we can play really tight in the d-zone, we closed quick on their team and we kept it simple. Get pucks to the net, it’s the easy things you always say but that’s the way we play and when we play our best, that’s how we play. In the second period, I felt like it was too risky, too many turnovers and that’s not our game, that’s not what we agreed on earlier in the year, the way we should play. It’s the simple things but that’s how it is.

Yeah, I mean we were talking about it in the room going into the third. Everybody knew that we needed a lot better from ourselves and we showed that in the third. Obviously, we can’t play a good 40 minutes and not for 20 minutes and expect to win. It was a good comeback, but unfortunately we couldn’t get two points.

No, not really for me. It’s nice to get on the scoresheet, you know, it’s been a while and I think I’ve been have some ups and downs for myself and as a team. I think our line played pretty solid tonight and that’s something that we have to build on.

# Todd McLellan

Well, we were told after it was ruled upon and obviously the league and the referees get together, that it was gloved ahead but that we had possession. I obviously don’t agree with it, but there’s nothing I’m going to do about it.

We’ve got to care about more situations that are important coming back to our end. We have world-class players, guys that we brought in to be shutdown players that missed assignments tonight. It’s not the bottom six, it’s the top six right now. That’s great that we’re scoring all these goals, but obviously we’re not getting enough points. I’m not sure that we value the checking part as much as we have in the past, it’s just go and score and it’s disappointing. Another hard game to evaluate, I’ve been saying that pretty much the whole year. Great that we come back, great that we score goals, great that we stick with it, but the carelessness is killing us.

I think that’s an easy question to answer, obviously [Drew Doughty] plays 26 minutes a night and calms things down back there, but you know in some of the situations it didn’t matter if we had Drew and Rob Blake on the ice together. Our forwards pinching at bad times, giving up 3-on-1’s, our power play creating a turnover for a goal, it doesn’t matter who’s back there.

That’s where it’s confusing, really, because we have outstanding efforts from a lot of guys and they produce goals. Guys that maybe don’t score quite as much. Then there’s others that just didn’t get it done and needed to.