Kings 1, Ducks 0
Other than a couple unwise penalties, there wasn’t much to criticize about the Kings’ game in that period.
A great first period for Bernier, who had to deal with the snafu with the lights and then faced some power-play pressure early in the game. He made six early saves, then pretty much could have taken a nap for the rest of the period. The Kings did a good job of preventing a lot of pressure from getting to him.
That was particularly the case on the penalty kill. It seemed more aggressive and there were a good number of blocked/deflected shots, so we’ll see if that holds up and if the penalty kill is truly improved.
The Kings’ top players seem to be in good form, particularly Visnovsky, Cammalleri and Kopitar. Handzus and Nagy have a definite chemistry together and Handzus isn’t afraid to whip the puck across the ice if he knows his countryman is somewhere in the area.
Each team had seven shots in the period. Ryan Getzlaf had three for the Ducks. The Kings won 11 of 18 faceoffs.