The Kings rambled from Buffalo to Boston with a win in their pockets but the firm notion in their minds that they would have to play better to produce the same result on Saturday against the Bruins.
Their victory over the Sabres was punctuated by Anze Kopitar’s third-period natural hat trick to cap a comeback and reward the resplendent goaltending of Darcy Kuemper in the first game of his second stint with the club. Kopitar scored at even-strength, on the power play and added an empty-netter during a five-on-six situation, while Kuemper held down the fort for 60 minutes.
In the first period alone, he withstood a barrage during a two-man disadvantage that culminated in a brilliant chance for Sabres star Tage Thompson. He also made several strong saves shorthanded, including extinguishing a fire alarm at the back post started by former Edmonton Oiler Ryan McLeod, whom he also stymied on a penalty shot. He was saved by the bell at the end of the first period –– a buzzer-beating goal was disallowed –– but continued his dominance through the final 40 minutes. Even on the one goal he allowed to Alex Tuch, Kuemper made the initial save on a clean breakaway, only to be beaten by a followup bid.
It was an emphatic statement by both the captain and a veteran goaltender looking for a bounce-back campaign after being traded by the Washington Capitals.
“He had himself a dip, so what’s his job? To get himself going back up again. It wasn’t just (the opener), he had a great preseason,” Coach Jim Hiller told Scott Burnside of the Kings’ Website.
The Sabres –– who had won their previous three meetings with the Kings, including two severe beatings in Buffalo –– carried play analytically on Thursday. They generated six shorthanded shots while both the quality and volume of their chances far exceeded that of the Kings. At the end of the night though, the Kings moved to 1-0-0 while the Sabres fell to 0-3-0, with Kopitar scoring as many goals in one period as Buffalo had mustered in three contests.
“We had played so well in the preseason, and we had played so tight, we hadn’t given up much at all, so this caught us off-guard,” Hiller told Burnside. “The positive thing for us is, we didn’t have a good game, so we can play a lot better. But nobody remembers (how we played) when we get into April and we’re fighting for those last few points to secure a playoff spot.”
He added: “We just did a lot of things that were pretty uncharacteristic of our team.”
As they seek to return to their core tenets and principles, the Kings will face a Bruins team that they toppled 4-1 behind Quinton Byfield’s hat trick in the Kings’ penultimate preseason affair. Byfield coughed up the puck to Tuch for his goal, but also skated it down to negate an icing call and feed Kopitar to the game-sealing tally on Thursday.
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Boston has been busy since the Kings last saw them, finally ending the holdout of goalie Jeremy Swayman with an eight-year, $66 million contract. They’re led once again by Czech dynamo David Pastrnak and have been paced in scoring thus far by free-agent signing Elias Lindholm, whom they hope will fill the void left by Patrice Bergeron’s 2023 retirement.
Kings at Boston
When: 10 a.m. Saturday
Where: TD Garden, Boston
How to watch: Bally Sports West
