Whicker: Kings play another close one but can’t finish this time

LOS ANGELES — Arthur Kaliyev had an up-close-and-personal accidental to necktie the people with 2:56 near connected Wednesday, but Ilya Samsonov swallowed up that changeable the mode helium had 33 others.

As the players unsorted themselves, Washington’s Tom Wilson, the bully of the Beltway, came successful down Brandon Lemieux and gave him a changeable to the ribs that astir apt outgo him immoderate shut-eye Wednesday night.

Was that wherefore Kings manager Todd McLellan called it a “playoff-ish” crippled astatine Staples Center? Actually, it looked similar a batch of regular-season enactment truthful far, a batch of sweat and soreness exchanged for not overmuch scoring.

This clip the Kings lost, 2-0, the archetypal clip they’ve emerged pointless from a crippled since a 3-2 regularisation nonaccomplishment to Winnipeg connected Oct. 28. That was 9 games ago.

“We’re going to beryllium playing choky games similar this the remainder of the season,” McLellan said. “But you’ve got to instrumentality vantage and people goals erstwhile you person a chance.”

The Kings turned Alex Ovechkin’s nighttime into thing uneventful, adjacent though they were playing 20-year-old Tobias Bjornfot and Mikey Anderson (22) arsenic the superior defence brace against Ovechkin’s line. The 36-year-old Washington scoring machine got 1 decent changeable connected Jonathan Quick during a powerfulness play but wasn’t terribly disposable otherwise.

It was scoreless until 3:30 remained, erstwhile Washington acceptable up successful beforehand of Quick. A walk ricocheted disconnected the skate of L.A.’s Alexander Edler, and John Carlson sent the puck toward the goal, wherever Garnet Hathaway had sneaked successful down Quick. Hathaway got the tap-in, and aboriginal Carlson scored an empty-netter.

“Both teams played with structure, truthful that is what happens,” Anderson said. “They got the bounce and we didn’t.”

“When it deed Edler’s skate it changed everything astir the mode guys were speechmaking the play,” McLellan said.

Samsonov and Vitek Vanecek person plugged the Washington extremity nicely successful the aboriginal season, and Samsonov improved his idiosyncratic grounds to 5-0-0 with his 2nd shutout of the year. Washington, playing without Lars Eller and T.J. Oshie, improved its grounds to 10-2-5.

The Kings person fixed up conscionable 16 goals successful their past 9 games, and that’s without Drew Doughty successful the lineup. Some of it is coagulated goaltending, immoderate of it could beryllium an assertive violative benignant that keeps the puck successful harmless places connected the ice. They person lone permitted much than 3 goals erstwhile (a 7-3 nonaccomplishment to the Blues).

“I deliberation the goalie made immoderate bully saves and I didn’t deliberation we made it hard capable connected him,” Anze Kopitar said. “It’s usually a operation of both. We person to find a mode to score.”