LA Kings: Three takeaways from Saturday’s loss to the St. Louis Blues

It’s starting to seem like the LA Kings are only going to play tight games in 2021.

Unfortunately, on Saturday night in St. Louis, they came out on the wrong end of a close match for the fourth time in five games. An empty-netter from Jaden Schwartz in the dying seconds gave the Blues a 4-2 victory over the Kings, dropping LA’s record to 1-2-2.

Here are three other takeaways from Saturday’s loss to the Blues.

Takeaway #1: Another slow start

Sluggish starts have become an early theme for the Kings this season.

The Kings have allowed the first goal in each of their five games so far this season. They’ve been outscored 6-2 in the first period of games and outshot 54-39.

The Blues owned the first period on Saturday night. They outshot the Kings 13-5 and took a 1-0 lead on a goal from Torey Krug. LA really didn’t generate anything dangerous in the offensive zone and was fortunate to only be down a goal at the end of it.

After five games, it’s clear that this is a problem for this team. Based on Todd McLellan’s post-game comments, you can bet he’s going to make sure his team focuses on improving their starts moving forward. The Kings aren’t going to have much success this year if they find themselves chasing every game.

Takeaway #2: New-look first line impresses again

Adrian Kempe stayed on LA’s top line with Anze Kopitar and Alex Iafallo for a second straight game, and it’s starting to look like a line that may stick together for a while.

Kempe scored on a one-timer off a pass from Iafallo early on in the second period to tie the game at 1-1.

For Kempe, it was his third straight game with a goal as he tied Andreas Athanasiou for the team lead. He’s now scored a 5-on-5 goal in back-to-back games playing on Kopitar’s line after having gone 27 straight games without one dating back to last season.

The Kings dominated play at even strength when that line was on the ice, owning over 78 percent of the shot attempts.

Though the Kings were outshot 30-23 on the night, they actually had far more shot attempts than the Blues, owning a 42-31 edge at even strength. While they need to do a better job of converting that possession advantage into more quality scoring opportunities, it’s something to build off. The Iafallo-Kopitar-Kempe line played a big part in driving that.