The Kings needed this 3-2 win against the St. Louis Blues.
"We got away from our game the last couple of games," Tyler Toffoli said.
You could say the Kings have been reeling a bit. Despite having an 11-game streak of not losing in regulation broken on Saturday with a 2-1 loss to the Calgary Flames, the Kings have lost four of their five games.
As always the Kings have struggled to score, once again in the bottom 10 of the league with 2.4 goals per game. That dropped to 1.4 goals per game in this recent five-game swoon.
I'm guessing there was a lot of relief on the Kings bench halfway through the first period. Jarret Stoll scored from the top of the left circle with some help from Dustin Brown screening up front.
"We knew we had to come up with a good game," Toffoli said. "When you lose a game, you've got to come out hard the next night especially at home."
Toffoli seemed to take that to heart as he made his presence known. As the first period was ticking down, Drew Doughty took a shot from the deep slot the clanged on the crossbar and shot out to Toffoli in the right circle. Toffoli went top shelf on Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak to give the Kings the 2-0 lead.
In the second period at the end of a pretty ineffective power play, Willie Mitchell attempted a shot from the left point that was blocked in the slot. Toffoli got the puck and cleaned up the garbage for the 3-0 lead just after the penalty expired.
"After a disappointing game against Calgary, we came out and had a good start," Jake Muzzin said.
The Blues scored two late goals to make the final score respectable. "You can only give them so many chances before they're going to find a way to bury one," goaltender Ben Scrivens said after his 25-save effort.
Of course, it helps that the Kings played the Blues to get themselves back on track. The Blues are a good team, but the last time St. Louis won a game at STAPLES Center was on March 17, 2011.
"I think the trend is we had slow starts," Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock said referring to their 6-3 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Friday. "Both games outplayed significantly in the first period, out-competed, not ready for the tempo."
The Kings have no time to rest on their laurels as they head down to Anaheim tomorrow night for a date with the Ducks.
