Coming off a defensive collapse in Ottawa, the Kings play back-to-back games in Toronto and Montreal
The Kings will wrap up the Eastern portion of their season-long road trip with their first back-to-back set of 2024-25, which will take them to Toronto to face the Maple Leafs on Wednesday before arriving in Montreal to confront the Canadiens on Thursday.
As they were saying after an opening-night win in Buffalo propelled mostly by a pair of strong individual efforts gave way to a tighter-checking overtime loss in Boston, the Kings sought to regain their form defensively after an 8-7 overtime defeat in Ottawa during which they held three different two-goal leads but came away with a solitary point.
"There was a lot of chances, especially this game, and then against Buffalo as well," last year's team-leading scorer Adrian Kempe told reporters. "[The] 50-50 [battles] that we lost around the bluelines and all that kind of stuff that caused three-on-two's, guys being open in the slot and on the wide side. We're going to have to go back, look at it and regroup."
Special teams also factored heavily into that seesaw affair, and that has started to become an early-season theme for the Kings. They've drawn the most penalties per game of any team, nearly seven per contest, but also taken the second-most per game. Their season-opening streak of 11 consecutive penalty kills was halted as they surrendered four power-play goals in Ottawa to overshadow the three that they scored.
"We were getting really good looks and we were confident in each other," Kings defenseman Brandt Clarke, who had power-play three assists in a homecoming game, told reporters. "It just wasn't enough, I guess."
The Leafs have produced enough in two straight 4-2 victories after stumbling, 1-0, against Montreal in their opener. After five seasons as Toronto's captain, John Tavares passed the "C" onto Auston Matthews over the summer.
Though they are still looking for the first point of the season from Matthews, their former league MVP and goal-scoring champion, they got two from William Nylander in Saturday's win over Pittsburgh.
The Canadiens fell to those same Penguins in their most recent outing to drop to 2-2-0 in this fledgling campaign. Cole Caufield's four goals placed him in a tie for second place league-wide entering Tuesday's action.
Defenseman Lane Hutson was tied for the points lead among all rookies with four, which also tied him for the team lead in defensive scoring with Kaiden Guhle. Hutson was taken in the same 2022 draft in which Juraj Slavkovský went No. 1 overall. Slavkovský signed a $60.8 million contract extension in the offseason and has started fast with a goal and three assists.