LOS ANGELES – One night when Darryl Sutter was back behind the bench at Staples Center, though for the opposing Calgary Flames, the two-time Stanley Cup-winning coach left the arena with another win, a 3-2 win over the struggling Kings. Victory .
Winger Alex Iaffalo and defenseman Alex Adler scored a goal each for the Kings, which they lost for the seventh time in eight matches. Cal Peterson made 29 saves in his third loss in his last four appearances.
Wingers Milan Lusic, Matthew Tkachuk and Andrew Mangiapane scored for Calgary, with Mangiapane adding an assist. Jakob Markström fired 40 shots behind as the flames improved on the road to a league-leading 10-2-2.
The Kings had more than six-five minutes to close the game, but they could not score and could only take one shot.
With a little less than six minutes left in the game, winger Viktor Arvidsson launched a slap shot over the circles that Markström trapped with his glove as he trailed while maintaining Calgary’s lead.
The Kings had only one goal in the second half with less than two minutes left in the second interval. Arvidsson dropped a drop pass for his partner Swede Adler. He skated between Markström’s gloves and pads for the 100th goal of Adler’s career and a wrist shot from the left faceoff dot for his first goal as King.
Calgary made some separation in the Middle Ages 4:54. It was Johnny Goudreau, cooking Takachuk from the middle on the right wing before the two wings criss-crossed. Takachuk hits a rising wrist shot through Doughty and Enz Kopitar and then takes Pietersen to the far side. Later in this period Takachuk exchanged joys, shakes and more with Adrian Kempe.
There were some first-period fireworks between Doughty and Takachuk. Doughty once brought down Takachuk. Takachuk sent Doughty to the ice twice, one with a cross-check and one with an alert reverse hit.
Later, Takachuk skated into Peterson, knocking down the goalkeeper. Doughty engaged Takachuk from behind and lightly punched him. Takachuk received a minor penalty, but the Kings failed to convert with an extra man as his power play was cut short by his third penalty of the first period.
One night while three former kings were skating for the opposition, one of them gave Calgary the lead with a power-play goal. Mangiapan’s skillfully weighted pass through the traffic found Lusick, who slipped a low shot between defending teammate Matt Roy’s feet and Peterson on the far side.
Calgary had also pulled off with a power-play goal scored by Mangiapane. Center Mikel Backlund produced a long rebound which Mangiapen found in the slot and pierced Pietersen back. In his 23rd game, it was his 16th goal of the season, helping Mangiapane score two goals from a career-high set in 56 games the previous season.
The Kings only opened 4:30 in the game. Iafallo fought back with some tumbling and pushing by defenseman Eric Gudbranson to redirect Adler’s shot home for Iafallo’s third goal in game two.
It was the Kings’ fourth goal scored from a deflection and the fourth goal that had been initiated by a defenseman’s shot in their previous two matches. The Kings are now leading 4-4-2, scoring the first this season.
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Sutter coached against the Kings for the first time since winning the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. Sutter went 225-147-53 over six seasons with the Kings before being fired as part of an organization overhaul after the 2016–17 campaign. ,
Flames forward Trevor Lewis played against the Kings for the first time. Part of those two cup-winning teams, he scored 70 goals and 93 assists in 674 games during his 12 seasons with the Kings.
There is much more to come on this story.
