The Los Angeles Kings and Ottawa Senators may have played the most exciting game of the early 2024-25 season so far. The Senators won a barn burner in overtime by a score of 8-7 and it wasn’t pretty defensively.
This marked just the second time in Senators franchise history that the team has scored seven goals in a game while also giving up seven. In terms of this franchise mark, it didn’t matter if Ottawa got the win or not. The only other time it happened was in 2019 in a 8-7 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.
Some may think it was a matter of time before Darcy Kuemper had a blow up game after two strong starts to begin the season. The Kings haven’t had reliable long-term netminding since Jonathan Quick’s glory days in LA. That seems long gone because even when he was still in Los Angeles, he started to decline as the Kings went through a re-tool.
Kuemper allowed all eight goals on 41 shots for a .805 SV% while the Senators pulled Anton Forsberg after three goals on nine shots and allowed Mads Sogaard finish the game for the win despite allowing four goals on 17 shots.
There weren’t very many pucks being stopped in the all offense game. Five Kings and five Senators each had multi-point games. Two players from each team scored twice, and the Senators had the slight edge with 11 players recording a point to the Kings’ 10.
There were some notable players, mainly on the Kings side, that failed to even record a point. David Perron is the only name to mention from the Senators, but Quinton Byfield, Philipp Danault, Trevor Moore, and Warren Foegele were left off the scoresheet.
Related: Former Kings Goalie Breaks NHL Record
The Kings leaving Kuemper in net for the entire game made some sense. LA trailed for the first time halfway through the third period and tied the game back up five minutes later. At that point with such a close game, putting in a cold backup may have done more harm than good. Kuemper also faced a lot of shots and four of the goals by the Senators came on the power play.
While the Senators hope to have Linus Ullmark back for their game on Thursday, the Kings will most likely be going with backup David Rittich in their game on Wednesday for his first appearance of the season.
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