The Kings were unable to fend off a bottom-dwelling neighbor before they traveled across the country to protect themselves against Alex Ovechkin’s assault on the record books.
After a loss at home Saturday to the also lowly Ducks, they will stare down the Washington Capitals Tuesday, who saw Ovechkin have an explosive and historic month in January.
His name has become inextricable with scoring prowess, so much so that Kings coach Todd McLellan mentioned him as a standard when evaluating his team’s play in a 3-1 loss to the Ducks, whom the Kings out-shot heavily, especially in the third period.
“You look up, you see 47, 48 shots. Were they real good? Were they Ovechkin type scoring chances? I don’t know,” McLellan said.
Ovechkin ascended from twelfth to eighth on the NHL’s career goal leaderboard by scoring 13 goals to kick off the new decade. He was held scoreless in their last game, a 4-3 loss to Pittsburgh Sunday, after surpassing four legends–Mario Lemieux, Mark Messier, Teemu Selanne and Steve Yzerman–last month.
Ovechkin seeks his third straight Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the league’s top goal-scorer, which would be the ninth of his career. He sits 199 goals behind Wayne Gretzky for the all-time lead, with no signs of slowing down his production despite being 34 years old.
Washington defenseman John Carlson and rookie goalie Ilya Samsonov are chasing benchmarks of their own. Carlson is on track for 96 points, and if he can pick up that pace slightly, he could turn in the first 100-point season for a blue-liner since Brian Leetch accomplished the feat for the New York Rangers in 1991-2. Samsonov has won 11 straight decisions, making him the third rookie in NHL history to do so and placing him three decisions behind Ross Brooks for the record for consecutive wins by a rookie netminder.
For the Kings’ part, they are chasing a mark of their own, albeit an ignominious one. They are on pace for roughly 66 points for the season, which would tie their worst mark in franchise history for an 82-game season, set in 1995-6. They have won just four of their last 17 games, meaning they could set the bar even lower. Their all-time worst mark was a meager 38 points in a 76-game horror show in 1969-70.
They look to right the ship on a four-game trip, starting in Washington and then remaining light on mileage as they hop between meetings with the three New York metropolitan area teams: the Islanders, New Jersey Devils and Rangers.Multiple Kings players have expressed a bit of disbelief that they are on pace for a worse campaign than last year, when they finished last in the West with 71 points.
“I read that the other day, and it was pretty surprising to me,” Kings captain Anze Kopitar said. “I feel, I know that we play a lot better hockey this year than we did last year. We are a lot more competitive. The no-quit attitude is always there, as opposed to last year.”
Kings at Washington
When: 4 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Capital One Arena
TV/Radio: Fox Sports West/iHeartRadio
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February 04, 2020 at 05:37AM
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Kings try to slow Alex Ovechkin, Capitals - LA Daily News
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