McLellan - “We didn’t want to shoot the puck”- Beniers on ex-USA teammate Kaliyev- Clarkes debut -Jones on returning to LA
# McLellan - “We didn’t want to shoot the puck”- Beniers on ex-USA teammate Kaliyev- Clarkes debut -Jones on returning to LA
# Contributors
# Players
# Staff
# Summary
The LA Kings failed to take advantage of a more defensively sound performance than in their opener and were unable to capitalize on added rush opportunities, falling 4-1 to the Seattle Kraken before leaving on a five-game road trip that begins Saturday at Minnesota.
# Notes and Quotes
We played much better defensively than in Game 1. We kept a heavy, hard team to 16 shots on goal, even strength. Our penalty kill did a really good job in a lot of situations,” he said. “I know we gave up a goal, but the 5-on-3 was really positive. So there are some things that we have to take from that game and look at it positively. The negative side, we’re a minute and a half in and we have a too many men on the ice penalty. Game management. Three O-zone penalties tonight. Game management. Three O-zone penalties. Game management. It’s something we’ve been harping and harping on and those are essentially impossible situations to practice, so they’ve got to take care of it. – Todd McLellan
He’s a really nice guy and pretty goofy, to be honest. He liked to keep it light and then he’s got a great shot and works hard out there and wins battles and is a pretty good guy to play with. I obviously haven’t played with him much because he was playing with Zegras at world juniors. But he was a lot of fun to be around as a teammate and he meshed with everyone. He never took anything super serious when he didn’t need to. Obviously when the game started he dialed it in, but that was kind of it – we were practicing, if we’d have a big game the next day, in the morning skate, he was keeping it light. – Matty Beniers on Arthur Kaliyev
We dressed six defensemen tonight. I know he wasn’t six. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t five, and I don’t believe he was four either, so that’s what I thought of him. I thought he had a real good night, didn’t hurt us at all defensively, creative offensively. I’d like to see him shoot the puck a little bit because I think he’s got a great shot and loves to pass, but he had some really good looks at the net where he could’ve shot the puck. – Todd McLellan on Brandt Clarke
They’re a scrappy team, they get in the way a lot. Heavy, hard sticks. A lot of battles, a lot of crap coming out of the battles. There’s rarely anything clean when you play against them, so when you do have the opportunity – I thought we created more in the game, believe it or not, than what showed up on the scoreboard, and the simple fact is we didn’t want to shoot the puck. We wanted to be way more over-creative, and I think of two on ones, I think of three-on-ones, I think we almost had a four-on-one, we didn’t get any shots off. Just too cute. When we’re playing well – I thought you could kind of feel it in the third – we started to put some pressure on, we shot the puck, we got it back, get ‘em out of position, but a little too cute right now. Still trying to figure out who we are. – Todd McLellan