Kings keep winning, tinkering

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Kings won for the 19th time this season and extended their season-long winning streak to seven games, the longest by any team in the NHL this season.
So what did they do for an encore after defeating the Ottawa Senators 4-3 in overtime on Thursday?
They traded for a Subban.

That would be 22-year-old defenseman
Jordan Subban
, youngest of the three hockey-playing Subban brothers. Naturally, the fun-loving Kings Twitter account (@LAKings) seized the opportunity, tweeting, "In exchange for Nic Dowd, Subban is coming to the LA Kings."
This, apparently, was designed to mess with fans of Nashville Predators defenseman P.K. Subban or Vegas Golden Knights goaltender Malcolm Subban. Jordan Subban, acquired from the Vancouver Canucks for Dowd, was in in his third season with Utica of the American Hockey League.
Dowd, a forward, has one assist in 16 games this season and was scratched from the Kings' past three games.
Jordan Subban has five assists in 16 games this season but has scored 27 goals in 148 AHL games. He will play for Ontario, the Kings' AHL affiliate.
Even though the Kings, with 41 points (19-8-3), are six points ahead of the Golden Knights in the Pacific Division and one point ahead of the St. Louis Blues for the top spot in the Western Conference, general manager Rob Blake is tinkering around the edges. This was his third transaction in less than a month; the Kings acquired forward Jussi Jokinen in a trade with the Edmonton Oilers for forward Micheal Cammalleri on Nov. 14, and acquired forward Torrey Mitchell in a trade with the Montreal Canadiens for a conditional pick in the 2018 NHL Draft on Nov. 23.

Of late, the Kings are finding ways to win when they are not necessarily pleased with their execution. For instance, they quickly reset in overtime Thursday after Senators forward Ryan Dzingel tied the game with 9.2 seconds left in the third period.
Kings defenseman Drew Doughty scored 32 seconds into overtime to give the Kings the 4-3 victory at Staples Center but called it their worst game during the winning streak. The words weren't quite as tough from Kings coach John Stevens, but he didn't think it was their best game either. Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper, who made 37 saves, has not lost in regulation this season (5-0-2).
"This is a team that's won seven in a row," Senators coach Guy Boucher said. "This is the hottest team in the NHL right now."
They'll try to push the streak to eight when play the Carolina Hurricanes at home Saturday (10:30 p.m. ET; FS-W, FS-CR, NHL.TV) before a four-game East Coast road trip.
"I think we've done a good job staying together, winning and losing, just tightening things up," Kings forward Tyler Toffoli said. "We're finding ways."
Said Kings forward Dustin Brown: "Even that stretch there where we lost [four in a row, Nov. 9-16], guys had the right mindset, attitude coming to the rink. It was still exciting to come to the rink, and I think that allowed us to build our momentum, just use that type of energy getting out of slumps.

"Hopefully we don't have to do it again, just having that reserve of energy to deal with stuff like that."
The Kings went 1-6-1 in November before their winning streak started with a 2-1 shootout victory against the Anaheim Ducks at Staples Center on Nov. 25. That dip may have been helpful in the long run, Brown said.
"In general, you learn more from losing than you do from winning," he said. "I said that about teams before we won [Stanley] Cups. We had to lose a lot to understand what it took to win.
"I think every group is different every year. It's good that we've had a little adversity already. I think we found a way to get out of it. It's also a different group of guys. We have a lot of young guys that are playing in their first couple of years.
"So it's good for them to understand it's not going to be a walk in the park. Unfortunately, we got off to such a start [11-2-2], sometimes guys who haven't been in the League think it's like this all the time. You've got to put the work in."