Penalty kill helps Flyers jolt Kings
LOS ANGELES — The Flyers' much-maligned penalty-killing unit played superbly during the team's three-game West Coast trip, highlighted by its 5-for-5 performance in Saturday's 2-1 win in Los Angeles.
"They did a real good job of not letting the Kings get into the zone," coach Craig Berube said.
The Flyers entered Saturday last in the 30-team league on the penalty kill, allowing opponents to score 74.4 percent of the time. But they killed 10 of 11 power plays (90.9 percent) on the West Coast trip.
The Flyers received excellent PK work Saturday from defensemen Braydon Coburn, Nick Grossmann, Nick Schultz and Andrew MacDonald, along with forwards Michael Raffl, Sean Couturier, Matt Read, Claude Giroux, R.J. Umberger and Scott Laughton.
Steve Mason, who was brilliant in the nets (see story), also starred during the penalty kill.
Williams' spin. Former Flyers winger Justin Williams, who scored the Kings' only goal, said his team wasn't ready for the early start. "We weren't prepared for the one o'clock game today," he said. "We weren't ready to go right away and got behind."
Numbers Dept. The Kings outshot the Flyers, 38-16. If you include shots that were blocked or that did not land on goal, the Kings had 69 attempts to the Flyers' 29.
Breakaways. Mason's 37 saves Saturday were the most he has made in a win this season; he raised his save percentage to .918…..The Flyers won a game with 16 or fewer shots for only the seventh time since 1988 — and all were on the road…..Defenseman Michael Del Zotto returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch for two games; he played 15:10 — the fewest minutes of any of the team's defensemen — and had two turnovers and three blocked shots. Berube seemed underwhelmed. "He looked a little bit nervous at first, but I thought he got his feet under him," the coach said….The Kings had their 136th straight sellout, including the playoffs.