Having reversed their recent negative momentum by winning back-to-back games to close last week, the Kings will return to the friendly confines of Crypto.com Arena to face Patrick Roy’s New York Islanders in a meeting of two of the stodgier squads in the NHL.
The Kings (33-20-9; 20-3-4 at home) were anything but stodgy on Sunday, however, when they stormed the Vegas Golden Knights’ castle and pillaged two points in a sinewy 6-5 victory. They established two separate three-goal leads of 3-0 and 5-2, fending off multiple pushes from Vegas to upend the Pacific Division’s pace car for the third time in four meetings this season.
In those matchups, the Kings have scored six goals twice and five in their other victory. Six different Kings found the back of the net on Sunday, including an “instinctual” tally from Brandt Clarke, in his words, and a momentum-shifting marker from Warren Foegele before Adrian Kempe scored the game-winner.
“Resilient,” Foegele told reporters. “That’s a really good team to play against, and I loved that we just stuck with it. There were some ups and downs in that game, but we stuck together and found a way to get the two points.”
Clarke, who had been subjected to some yo-yoing with his minutes and even his games during the middle third of a season that he began with very promising results, spoke postgame about the turmoil that seemed to dissipate after Friday’s trade deadline passed.
“It’s definitely tough being in and out,” Clarke told reporters. “But that just kind of grew my hunger to want to make a difference when I was back in. I love being part of this team, I love being in this locker room.”
The Kings went into Vegas as the NHL’s fourth most feeble offense, and next they’ll face an opponent presently tied for the fifth fewest goals in the league. The Islanders, whom the Kings beat, 3-1, on Long Island back on Dec. 10, will be playing their third game in four nights. They split a back-to-back set that saw them win, 4-2, in San Jose on Saturday, before falling, 4-1, to the Ducks on Sunday.
So desperate were the Islanders for offense in Anaheim that Roy pulled their goalie down three scores with well over half of the third period remaining. It was an ineffective but permitted eccentricity from a man who knows more about goaltending than perhaps anyone: Roy won four Stanley Cups manning the cage of two different franchises, the Montreal Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche.
The Islanders and Kings will take the ice with two of the NHL’s five worst power plays this season, when the Isles have outright brought up the rear in terms of conversion rate. They also each ranked in the bottom three in terms of penalties drawn, predictably leaving these as the two lowest-output power plays in the NHL this season (the Kings are tied with the Ducks for 30th and the Islanders rank dead last in power-play goals).
The Islanders are also without their most creative and skilled player, Mathew Barzal (lower-body). They went to the conference finals in 2020 and 2021, when Kings coach Jim Hiller was an assistant for the Isles, and dealt away one of the central figures from those runs, Brock Nelson, at the trade deadline.
ISLANDERS AT KINGS
When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: FDSN West
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