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Slump alert: Kopitar only King to score in last 300 minutes

anzekopitargetty

For the Los Angeles Kings, it’s been Anze Kopitar or bust lately.

Following Thursday’s 4-1 loss to Pittsburgh, the Kings found themselves mired in a crazy slump -- outside of Kopitar, who has three goals in his last five games, not a single player has scored in 303:10.

Yeah. Over 300 minutes of hockey. Here’s what the Kings have done lately:

KingsSlump

As you can see, goals are at a premium -- especially ones scored by someone other than Kopitar. Captain Dustin Brown hasn’t scored in nine games, Mike Richards hasn’t scored in seven and Justin Williams hasn’t scored in 11.

Some might be concerned about this trend, but Darryl Sutter isn’t one of them. He doesn’t view the recent scoring woes as an indication of anything because, as far as he’s concerned, previous performances have nothing to do with current or future ones.

From LA Kings Insider:

I only base it on tonight. We scored one tonight. You can’t beat Pittsburgh scoring one goal. It’s not just about scoring goals in this game.

[Reporter: But during the stretch, what are your thoughts on how you’re doing as far as getting the chances?]

What stretch?

[Reporter: The last five games.]

We won in San Jose. It was a tough, tough game, We won that game. And then we didn’t score at Phoenix, so we lost. And tonight we only scored one. So I don’t look at what the last five games had anything to do with tonight.

Of course, the Kings’ scoring issues aren’t just a byproduct of the last few games -- it’s been a season-long problem. L.A. currently sits 29th in the NHL in goals per game (2.29) and the only team scoring less is Buffalo, the NHL’s last-place team.