The Kings extended their point streak to eight games on Thursday night with a 4-3 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. In the second half of a back-to-back, the Kings took three of a possible four points across the last 24 hours.
Pittsburgh broke the ice just past the seven minute mark of the first period when Sidney Crosby beat Pheonix Copley on a wraparound for his seventh goal of the season. Seven minutes later, it was the Kings who evened the score and doing so on the penalty kill. Anze Kopitar won a race to the puck in the Penguins end and found a streaking Carl Grundstrom backdoor ahead of the lackluster backcheckers of Pittsburgh to knot the game at 1-1. With the assist, Kopitar passed Luc Robitaille for the second most points in franchise history with 1,155. Kopitar now trails only Marcel Dionne’s 1,307 points for the most in franchise history; a number well within range with at least two more seasons under contract after this year.
Tied up at one heading into the second period, Adrian Kempe gave the Kings the lead with 10:02 remaining in the period to extend his point streak to a career-long eight games. Assists on the Kempe tally came from Mikey Anderson (7) and Quinton Byfield (10), who extended his point streak to a career-long five games. Now leading by a goal, the Kings surrendered their own shorthanded goal when Lars Eller found the back of the net with 1:57 remaining in the middle stanza.
Quickly into the third period the Penguins regained the lead with a Crosby feed to Jake Guentzel backdoor with 19:37 remaining in the final 20. The Kings fought back to even the score for a second time in the game as Kevin Fiala notched his second goal of the season, following up on a rebound of a Pierre-Luc Dubois shot just shy of seven minutes into the third period. Chances for both teams followed, but regulation wasn’t enough to decide a winner.
Set for the 3-on-3 session, the Penguins earned the extra point after Bryan Rust scored not once, but twice. First, a disallowed goal due to offsides kept the game alive, but delayed the inevitable. Just seconds after the overturned goal kept the Kings alive, Rust won it again for the Penguins on a wraparound goal.
Copley returned to the net for the Kings for the first time in 13 days and stopped 16 of 20 shots. Copley has yet to lose a game in regulation as his record goes to 1-0-2.
