FINAL – Kings 5, Flames 6 – Danault, McLellan

Last updated Unknown Edit Source

• News post

• Zach Dooley

The LA Kings began a four-game roadtrip with a 6-5 defeat in Calgary on Monday evening at the Scotiabank Saddledome.

• Arthur Kaliyev
• Phillip Danault

• Todd McLellan

# Phillip Danault

Yeah, I think we played one of our worst games defensively, we gave up too many rushes. We did that to ourselves and lost the game in the first period. We weren’t sharp enough mentally.

It was mistakes that they capitalized on. They’re good team and that’s what they do all the time, they capitalize on mistakes like that to try and frustrate other teams just like we do.

A lot of character, obviously we wanted to get better and get back to our game as fast as possible, so we didn’t weigh too much on the next game. Obviously it was really close, but a lot of character from our team, big time.

Our start has got to be better, defensively we have to be better, move the puck quicker, we have to get open. All-around game, I think. We put this game behind us and we’ll keep that third period in mind, we were better than they were [in that period].

# Todd McLellan

Well, we played some pretty shoddy hockey today and despite getting the lead, we weren’t real sharp, it showed up in a lot of different areas. We had guys miss line changes, passes through the neutral zone, we had an icing call with two seconds left, missed faceoff coverages. To me, I think the physical part of the game was potentially there early, but the mental part didn’t exist at all. Then you get a little desperate, it starts going away but it’s too little too late. You can pick any one of the probably 20 moments during the game and eliminate it, it may give us a better chance but we still weren’t good.

Yepp, that’s a simple answer. Can’t even really elaborate there, yes.

Just get back to work.

I’m going answer the obvious, it’s good, we didn’t roll over and we didn’t quit, but the fact that we were in that situation was pretty unique. We were a shot away from at least getting a point on that night, the goaltender made a real good save, but again, I don’t think we should lose sight of how this game evolved. Just because we fought back and made it 6-5, there are a lot of things that we have to fix.