The Colorado Avalanche spoiled the home opener for head coach Jim Hiller and the Los Angeles Kings (0-1-0) at Crypto Arena on Tuesday night. A fun and bittersweet night with the final home regular season opener game for captain Anze Kopitar and the surprising reveal of the new third jerseys and silver helmets was diminished by the Avs.
Jim Hiller and the Los Angeles Kings fall decisively to the Colorado Avalanche in the regular season opener at home on Tuesday
It doesn't get much easier for the Kings from here on out with the back end of back-to-back games on tap for tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights on the road at T-Mobile Arena.
Hiller spoke about the loss to the Avs last night with the media postgame after the 4-1 defeat in the home opener at Crypto.
Here's a look at everything Hiller had to say after the Kings' 4-1 loss to the Avalanche in the home regular season opener at Crypto.com Arena on Oct. 7.
Jim Hiller
On the Kings taking multiple untimely penalties on the penalty kill
"That always disrupts you, for sure, but I didn’t think there was a lot of flow to the game really, from either team, particularly in the second period. First period it was mucky but it was kind of a pretty well played game. What they did really well, what they did better than us, is they checked us better than we did and we usually check pretty good, so credit to them. They really put a strong checking game, didn’t give us much time and space and we needed somebody to either one, get a good forecheck going and just try to create something ugly down there or [two] make a play and we were really not able to do either those two."
On positive takeaways from the loss vs. Colorado in the opener
"I don’t think you can draw too many that you can point to, a player or to a part of our game. I guess the penalty kill, you give that team six power plays, to hold them to one is actually probably a pretty good job in the end, if you want to look at one part of the game. Clearly you can’t give them six and then think you did well, you’re not going to win that way."
On Colorado effectively defending and turning over the Kings
"I’ll say Colorado tracked us hard, didn’t give us a lot of time and space and we tried to make way too many passes under that type of duress. You hear us talk about this a lot, we had to forecheck more. We just had to forecheck more. It was all we were going to be able to get tonight."
On how to learn from the loss and not overreact
"That was not a good game for us, but I don’t want to take away from how well Colorado played here tonight, you know what I mean, so let’s give them the credit that they’re due and say that we need to play better than we did. We’ll bounce back tomorrow, that’s just what we do, that’s how the league works. It’s a marathon, as we know, and we weren’t happy with what we played."
On the play of Brian Dumoulin and Cody Ceci on defense for the Kings
"I thought they were fine. If you look at the goals, we came back into the D-zone, we didn’t stop once, and close the middle, that’s not on either defenseman. The other one was a seeing-eye shot a little bit, Malinski’s goal, and then you got Necas on the power play. So there wasn’t a player that missed an assignment, there was a couple as a group where we missed an assignment, we had two or three guys not stopped in front of the net, disappointed in that. I thought, up and down the lineup, there’s nobody who really stood out for me in a real positive way or negative."
On Brandt Clarke
"For all the really good things Clarkie does, one probably we don’t talk enough about is how competitive he is. So Clarkie, he’s not going to go away, he plays hard, he’s in the middle of it. The guys went after him for different reasons, but he’s not going away, he plays hard."