From one ascendant force in the East to another, the Kings landed in Detroit for Monday’s showdown with the Red Wings, who were in the midst of an about-face under former Kings coach Todd McLellan.
The Kings fell 3-2 in overtime on Saturday to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who, like the Red Wings, have pushed their way from obscurity into the playoff picture.
Sunday marked one month since the Wings turned to McLellan to guide a roster that included former Kings goalie Cam Talbot, who previously played for McLellan with both the Kings and Edmonton Oilers, and longtime Kings nemesis Patrick Kane.
Talbot posted a shutout of the Tampa Bay Lightning punctuated by a lunging glove save aganst Nikita Kucherov on Saturday. Kane missed the match with an upper-body injury, but the Wings still moved to 10-4-1 under McLellan. He jumped into the fray –– his first practice was a morning skate before a loss to Toronto –– and right afterward the Wings reeled off seven straight wins.
McLellan and his right-hand man, former Kings and Ducks assistant Trent Yawney, have put their imprint on the winged wheel in short order.
“Our structure in all three zones (has improved), I feel like we’re just supporting the puck better,” Talbot told The Detroit News.
Even without veterans like Jeff Petry and, more recently, Kane, the Wings have played with more poise, less panic, and greater confidence. They’ve pivoted on a dime from the meandering campaign they’d endured under Derek Lalonde.
They had a .441 points percentage and a miserable 68.8% clip on the penalty kill. That’s gone up to .700 with McLellan, and while their PK remained under renovation, their resilience shorthanded factored heavily into Saturday’s shutout of the NHL’s highest-scoring attack.
“Our PK has stepped up pretty big the last few games. We tweaked that when they (McLellan and Yawney) came in,” Talbot continued. “It’s not always easy to change things on the fly, so we knew there was going to be some growing pains there. But our penalty kill was outstanding (against Tampa).”
Forward Marco Kasper, who has eight points in his past nine games after scoring just seven points all season under Lalonde, said the fresh presence behind the bench was palpable.
“We had some intense practices (early on that) translated to our games,” Kasper told the Detroit News. “We’ve had better starts, going out there the first 20, and, after that, we’ve done a good job playing a full 60 minutes, and it translated from having intense practices.”
For the Kings, Monday is an opportunity to build on a respectable analytical performance that barely earned them a point in Columbus.
Barely earning a point has been a theme across individuals as well as the collective of late: they’ve scored two goals or fewer in their past 14 losses and eight of their last nine games overall. Adrian Kempe (six) and Alex Turcotte (three) have more goals than the rest of the roster combined in those nine outings.
Saturday, Alex Laferriere, who returned from an upper-body injury, had a tying goal taken off the board. But Quinton Byfield made sure his club didn’t come up empty-handed, forcing overtime with a six-on-five tally with 65 seconds remaining in regulation.
Despite coming up short in overtime, Byfield felt there were encouraging signs in the Kings’ play.
“We had a lot of O-zone pressure and we broke up a lot of plays,” Byfield said. “We just didn’t get some of the bounces that we needed. They’re a good team and they’re hot right now, so, yeah.”