from Mark Whicker of the LA Daily News,
The Kings’ guns were blazing. Their armor was the problem.
They put up three goals and, at the end, had all the bullets they needed to win Game 1 against San Jose. Kyle Clifford missed a yawning yard of net. Tyler Toffoli had daylight and couldn’t cash in. Milan Lucic tried a difficult angle and came up empty.
But the Sharks, trying to shake their wait-till-next-year habits, answered everything the Kings mustered and hung on, through a minute-and-a-half of 5-on-6 hockey. They subdued the Kings, 4-3, to take a 1-0 lead, in a frenzied if imperfect hockey game that was nearly as loud and unlikely as that pageant we all watched here Tuesday night.
Game 1 began with the release of all the playoff energy the Kings hadn’t gotten to spend since Game 5 of the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals, when Alec Martinez picked up a rebound and fired it past Henrik Lundqvist and made a sporting fortress tremble.
Milan Lucic played that first period like an outlaw walking into a saloon. Anze Kopitar stole a puck and put the events in motion that became a goal credited to Jake Muzzin, because he held the puck long enough for Martin Jones to collapse, and then bounced if off the Sharks’ Tomas Hertl.
Game highlights can be watched below...
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