Another 0.4 for the history books
Toffoli’s improbable one-timer off a late faceoff extends the Kings’ recent fortunes.
2004, but for a few precious moments, the celebration felt like late spring. Joyous hops from the bench. Players mingled about as if a playoff series just ended. The 17,565 fans in TD Garden in disbelief.
It was a win in October, not May, but when Tyler Toffoli one-timed Anze Kopitar’s faceoff win with 0.4 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Kings a stunning 2-1 win Saturday against the Boston Bruins, it summed up the Kings’ season.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon again,” Kopitar said. “I’ve never seen it in my hockey career to work like that, or that fast.”
Kopitar lined up for a faceoff against David Pastrnak with 0.9 seconds on the clock and drew it right to Toffoli for his second goal of the game with 0.4 seconds left, the same time that remained when Fisher sank a winning shot in a 2004 playoff game.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Toffoli said. “First time I’ve done that.”
Much like the Kings’ 9-1-1 start, all the pieces fell into place.
Kings coach John Stevens put right handers Toffoli and Drew Doughty behind Kopitar to ensure a quick shot from the right side. The Bruins iced the puck and could not send out faceoff ace Patrice Bergeron.
After officials confirmed the goal against the clock, the Kings took their celebration to the dressing room with a 4-1 record on their sixgame trip.
“I don’t want to get carried away,” Stevens said. “It’s a huge win. We didn’t
win a playoff series or anything, but it’s a big win. This group, I thought, battled hard. We told them sometimes it might take to the last second of a hockey game. I didn’t think it would be literally the last second.”
The line of Toffoli, Pearson and Adrian Kempe was strong all night, and the top line of Kopitar, Dustin Brown and Alex Iafallo was the Kings’ best in the final period.
Again, Jonathan Quick anchored it. He stopped a two-on-one, a break by Anders Bjork and another quality shot in the final three minutes of overtime in a superb matchup against Boston’s Tuukka Rask.
The Kings toiled for Toffoli’s stunner. “You can say it’s luck,” Kopitar said. “You can say it’s good bounces. But at the same time, we’re working hard and we’re working for those bounces. To see it paid off in the way it did tonight, like I said, we’ll take it.”
Boston played six players with a combined 72 games of NHL experience.
One of them, Charlie McAvoy, 19, lived up to his billing as an up-and-coming defenseman with a headsup pass off a cycle play to Brad Marchand for Boston’s goal. McAvoy threw the puck across the ice and Marchand re-directed more than five minutes into the game.
Toffoli responded four minutes later with a backhand goal off a turnover. Pearson dumped in the puck and Boston’s Torey Krug, with Kempe giving chase, sent a pass up the middle that Toffoli grabbed and lifted past Rask.
Both teams scratched and clawed for the ensuing 56 minutes until Toffoli’s third goal in two games. The Bruins were left shaking their heads.
“Yeah, that’s one of those things that happens once in a blue moon,” Marchand said. “You know it’s unfortunate, but I thought we played a pretty decent game. It’s just tough how it ended.”
Oscar Fantenberg was a late scratch because of back spasms that Stevens said flared up in the morning.
“It’s nothing that’s serious,” Stevens said. “It’s just something that’s maintenance related.”
‘We told them sometimes it might take to the last second of a hockey game. I didn’t think it would be literally the last second.’ — John Stevens, Kings coach