It’s been very challenging for visiting teams to win in Los Angeles this season, and when you shoot yourself in the foot several times, it certainly doesn’t help your cause.
The Winnipeg Jets were undone by turnovers Tuesday night in L.A., dropping a 4-1 decision that improved the Kings’ impressive home record to 28-4-4 on the season.
The Kings turned three Jets giveaways directly into three goals and added an empty netter to end the Jets three-game win streak.
“We turned the puck over three times and it ended up in the back of our net,” said Jets head coach Scott Arniel. “I liked a lot of what we did, our game plan against them. We did a good job of getting through the neutral zone.
“We didn’t spend a lot of time in our end of the rink, but again, we made three mistakes and ended up in the back of our net.”
The Jets fell behind by two goals early and Cole Perfetti’s 17th goal of the season in the second period pulled the Jets within one. But Andrei Kuzmenko scored off a Logan Stanley turnover late in the frame to restore the two-goal lead.
The Jets had single digit shot totals in each of the three periods and ended up getting outshot 20-19.
“The entire game, I thought we played pretty well,” said Perfetti. “They’re obviously a really good team in this building and they don’t give up much. But I thought we created some chances and had our looks and a couple of self-inflicted wounds and they capitalized on some of their chances.”
Perfetti has at least a point in five of his last six games.
With the victory, the Kings won all three meetings to sweep the season series for the first time since the 2012-2013 season when they met only once. The Jets scored just once in each of their three matchups this season.
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“They’re extremely stingy,” said Arniel. “They don’t give you a whole lot. They’re the type of team that if you make mistakes they pounce on it.”
Luke Schenn missed the game and is day-to-day after stiffening up during the morning skate. Haydn Fleury dressed in his absence.
The Jets lead the Dallas Stars by only four points for the division lead and the Stars have a game in hand.
Not much happened over the first eight minutes of the game but a pair of misplays burned the Jets in a big way near the midway mark of the first.
The first mistake came when Colin Miller sent a grenade of a pass up the boards in his own end, too high and too hot for Mark Scheifele to corral. It landed on the stick of Brandon native Joel Edmundson at the point, who sent a shot on net that banked off Trevor Moore and into the net at the 8:28 mark.
Just over a minute later, Josh Morrissey sent a breakout pass to David Gustafsson that the forward couldn’t handle in the neutral zone. LA picked it up as Morrissey went off for a change with Adrian Kempe charging into the Winnipeg zone with the puck. He dropped it off to Andrei Kuzmenko who sent it backdoor to Anze Kopitar for a one-timer that beat Connor Hellebuyck to make it 2-0 at the 9:50 mark.
The Kings wound up outshooting the Jets 10-7 in the opening 20 minutes. Winnipeg started to generate some decent looks late in the period but couldn’t get on the board.
The Jets generated solid zone time in the early minutes of the second as well but continued to struggle to get shots to the net.
Los Angeles earned the game’s first power play when Kevin Fiala was tripped by the stick of Hellebuyck to the right of the Winnipeg net. The Jets managed to kill the penalty and moments later got on the board.
Perfetti served the minor penalty for Hellebuyck and right as he stepped out of the box, Morgan Barron made a great play to block a shot and collect the puck, leading to Perfetti being sprung on a 2-on-1 with Kyle Connor. Perfetti never looked to pass as he rifled a perfect shot that beat Darcy Kuemper to make it 2-1 at the 11:40 mark.
The Jets had the momentum as they looked to even the score but another big blunder set them back.
Logan Stanley skated out of his own end with the puck and as he attempted to cross the red line, Kuzmenko poke-checked the puck off Stanley’s stick, and as Stanley lost his balance and fell to the ice, Kuzmenko skated the puck into the Winnipeg end on an odd-man rush.
He looked pass the whole way, fooling Hellebuyck before he slid a shot through Hellebuyck’s five-hole to restore the Kings’ two-goal lead at the 16:07 mark.
The Kings maintained their edge in shots on goal heading to the third period, edging Winnipeg 18-13 through 40 minutes.
Winnipeg got their first power play chance of the night with 15 minutes to go in the third when Nikolaj Ehlers was tripped in the attacking zone but the Jets, operating at a 17 per cent clip on the power play since the Four Nations Faceoff, failed to generate any shots on goal over the two minutes.
Ehlers drew another penalty with 5:08 remaining but the power play again struggled mightily, never getting set up and failing to generate a shot once again.
Winnipeg pulled Hellebuyck for an extra attacker but Kempe sealed the win with an empty-netter with 55 seconds to go.
The Jets fall to 0-2-1 against the Kings this season and failed to register 20 shots on goal in any of the meetings.
Hellebuyck turned aside 16 shots in defeat.
The Jets will now head to Vegas to face the Golden Knights Thursday night. Puck drop is just after 9:30 p.m. with pregame coverage on 680 CJOB starting at 7 p.m.
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