Kings lose leads, game to Panthers in overtime
Sam Reinhart scored on a backhander with less than a second to play in overtime, Matthew Tkachuk scored late in regulation to tie the contest and the Florida Panthers rallied past the Kings 3-2 on Thursday night to push their winning streak to nine games.
Sam Bennett also scored for Florida, which trailed 1-0 and 2-1 before pulling out the win. Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 31 shots for the Panthers, plus got one of the two assists on Reinhart’s winner.
“This was a really tough test tonight,” Reinhart said. “I liked our battle. I liked our compete . ... It was a fun one to play.”
Trevor Moore and Drew Doughty scored for the Kings. Cam Talbot made 38 saves for Los Angeles, which is 0-3-4 in its last seven games. The Kings have also wasted third-period leads in each of their last three games.
“There is going to be an element of frustration. I would be concerned if there wasn’t,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “Frustration is a dangerous emotion if you don’t channel it
SUNRISE, FLA. » THE SCORE
PANTHERS 3, KINGS 2, OT
Up next: Kings at Red Wings, Saturday, 4 p.m., BSSC
SUMMARY
Kings Florida
First Period:
1, Kings, Moore 18 (Fiala, Danault), 6:17. Penalties: Dubois, LA (Roughing), 17:24.
2, Florida, Bennett 8 (Luostarinen, Ekman-Larsson), 10:58. 3, Kings, Doughty 8 (Kopitar, Kempe), 19:39 (pp). Penalties: Reinhart, FLA (Tripping), 1:15. Kulikov, FLA (Roughing), 7:08. Kempe, LA (Roughing), 7:08. Fiala, LA (Slashing), 8:56. Ekblad, FLA (Holding), 19:32.
Second Period:
Third Period:
4, Florida, Tkachuk 12 (Reinhart, Verhaeghe), 17:42. Penalties: Forsling, FLA (Tripping), 13:34.
5, Florida, Reinhart 30 (Bobrovsky, Barkov), 4:59 (pp). Penalties: Kempe, LA (Cross Checking), 3:37.
Kings 13-11-9-1: 34. Florida 15-10-10-4: 39.
Overtime:
Shots on goal:
Power-play opportunities:
Florida 1 of 3.
Kings, Talbot 14-9-5 (39 shots-36 saves). Florida, Bobrovsky 21-9-1 (34-32). 18,616 (19,250); 2:44.
Pierre Lambert, Brian Pochmara. Linesmen: Devin Berg, David Brisebois.
Goalies:
A: Referees: 1 0
T: 1 1 0 1 0 — 1 —
Kings 1 of 3.
2 3
the right way and I think our group has done a pretty good job of it. When you go on a streak that’s not going your way, sometimes you are really upset at the effort and the overall intensity of the club as a whole, but we don’t have that concern right now. It’s there.”
The Kings’ Adrian Kempe was called for cross-checking Florida’s Brandon Montour with 1:23 left in overtime, giving the Panthers a 4-on-3 edge. The Kings killed off the first 1:22 of that power play, but Reinhart got his 30th goal of the season — going over Talbot’s shoulder — with seven-tenths of a second left to keep the winning streak alive.
Florida’s nine-game winning streak is the third-longest in franchise history. The Panthers won 12 consecutive games in the 201516 season, then had their other two longest streaks in 2021-22 — eight straight wins to open that season, then 13 in a row toward the end of that season.
Doughty got his first goal in his last 15 games — he hadn’t scored since Dec. 7 — about eight seconds into a Los Angeles power play late in the second for a 2-1 lead, and the Kings nearly made it hold up. But with Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker, Tkachuk scored with 2:18 left to pull the Panthers into a tie. It was the fifth consecutive game Tkachuk had a goal.
Both teams had chances in the extra session, before Reinhart got the one that mattered most. He became the second player in the NHL to hit the 30-goal mark this season, behind only Toronto’s Auston Matthews.