The NHL’s longest winning streak came to an emphatic end on Sunday night when the Los Angeles went into Vegas and stunned the Golden Knights with a 4-1 win.
The Kings’ win snaps what had been an eight-game winning streak for the Golden Knights and continues their recent run of playing spoiler in the Stanley Cup Playoff race.
They may have one of the league’s worst records, but they are now 6-2-1 in their past nine games with five of those wins coming against teams that are either in a playoff spot right now, or are fighting for a playoff spot. Those wins have been against Calgary, Colorado, Florida, Pittsburgh, and now Vegas.
A few things that stood out from Sunday’s game.
Cal Petersen was great again for the Kings
After stopping 35 out of 36 shots against the Penguins on Wednesday night, Petersen was even better against the Golden Knights by turning aside 42 of 43 shots to pick up his third win of the season.
When the Kings traded Jack Campbell to the Toronto Maple Leafs before the trade deadline it gave Petersen an opportunity to get a look at the NHL level as Jonathan Quick’s backup. He has done nothing but impress in his limited action so far.
His performance on Sunday improved his save percentage to .926 for the season in his first six appearances.
Anze Kopitar set the tone early in this game
One player you can not blame for the Kings’ overall performance this season is Kopitar.
His offense has bounced back a little this season and he continued that on Sunday with a pair of goals to open the scoring in the first period.
That performance gives him the 11th 20-goal season of his career.
After scoring just 22 goals and 60 points in 81 games a year ago, he is now on pace for 25 goals and 75 points in 82 games this season.
The goal of the game came from an unlikely source
Trevor Lewis busted out the spin-o-rama move to extend the Kings’ lead to 3-0 in the second period. This was pretty much the exact moment the Golden Knights had to know it was not going to be their night. This goal gives Lewis five goals in 52 games this season, and is only his eighth since the start of the 2018-19 season (a span of 96 games).
Golden Knights miss chance to gain more ground in Pacific Division race
At the end of the day you can not be too disappointed when your team has an eight-game winning streak come to an end.
That is a lot of wins, it extremely difficult to do, and at some point you are going to run into a game where the result doesn’t go your way.
That happened for Vegas on Sunday, even if it wasn’t a bad overall performance. The Golden Knights ended up owning a 43-17 edge on the shot chart (including 38-7 over the second and third periods), a territorial advantage that will a lot of times result in a win.
But Petersen was outstanding in the Kings’ crease while the Kings made the most of their limited opportunities.
Even if the overall process was mostly fine, this was still a missed opportunity for the Golden Knights to gain some ground in the Pacific Division race.
Vegas still sits in first place with a four-point lead over the Edmonton Oilers, but the Oilers still have two games in hand. The loss combined with Calgary’s shutout win over the Florida Panthers also helped the Flames close their gap to five points.
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.