LA Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper (35) and center Anze Kopitar (11) celebrate at the end of the game against the New York Islanders at the Crypto.com Arena. The Los Angeles Kings will try to run their home point streak to 12 games when they host the Nashville Predators on Saturday.
The Kings are 8-0-3 in their past 11 at home following a 3-0 win against the visiting Washington Capitals on Thursday night, ending the Caps’ five-game winning streak.
It matches the third-longest home-point streak in franchise history behind 13-game runs in 2022-23 (11-0-2) and 1992-93 (12-0-1).
With their fourth straight victory overall, the Kings remained within a point of the Edmonton Oilers for second place in the Pacific Division. That’s important because the second-place team hosts the third-place team in the first round of the playoffs.
“We have our eye on trying to get home ice for playoffs,” Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper said after recording his third shutout of the season on Thursday. “Every team in the race wants that, and we just know how important every point is going to be down the stretch here. We just want to make sure we’re coming to play every night and try to get as many wins as we can.”
Los Angeles coach Jim Hiller agreed with Kuemper that home-ice advantage in the first round is important, especially against a team like Edmonton, which knocked the Kings out of the playoffs in each of the past three seasons in the first round after finishing ahead of them in the standings, but he doesn’t believe it should be the main focus.
He’d rather they focus on playing the way they did against the Capitals.
“If we could do that consistently enough over the next 18 games, then we should give ourselves a pretty good chance,” Hiller said. “We just have to come out and be focused and play as a team.”
Kings forward Quinton Byfield has scored in five straight games, and Anze Kopitar enters on a four-game point streak (two goals, three assists).
Los Angeles also combined to kill all 13 power plays it faced in the past two games.
“We had some meetings and regrouped and got back to what makes us our best out there,” Kuemper said of the penalty kill. “Obviously we’ve been getting huge kills and we’re feeling really confident on it.”
The Predators are facing a quick turnaround after losing 2-1 at the Anaheim Ducks on Friday.
Nashville battled back to tie the score in the third period, but failed to capitalize on a 5-on-3 for 1:10 midway through the third period and then gave up the tie-breaking goal with 8:40 remaining, ending a four-game winning streak.
“It’s disappointing,” Nashville forward Ryan O’Reilly said. “We had some opportunities to bury some goals and we didn’t. We had some chances to get up first because we didn’t give up a ton tonight. I think we held them to about 15 shots, which is pretty good, but a couple of mistakes killed us.
“I know for myself, I didn’t like my game. I didn’t nearly create enough. I know I can do a lot better, so it’s kind of frustrating that way because it was there for us. We’re back at it tomorrow. We have to take this with us, make our adjustments, and get ready for (Saturday).”
-Field Level Media
