Jonathan Quick committed a huge blunder that cost the Los Angeles Kings Game 1 of their playoff series with the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday.
The defending champion Kings were on a power play with the game tied 1-1 in overtime. Quick went behind the net to retrieve a puck and was debating which way he should pass it. For some reason, he tried to slip the puck along the boards in the direction of Alex Steen, who was closing in behind the net after just getting on the ice. Steen stole the puck and pushed it in for an easy game-winning goal.
“I don’t have an option to the left, and you’re trying to force him to the left, trying to give my D-man a little more time with the puck …. You try to make him make a decision. And he got the stick on it,” Quick said of the play, via the Los Angeles Times’ Helene Elliott.
The goal was Steen’s second of the game — he also scored in the first on a power play. The Kings were unable to score until 32 seconds left in the game when they finally netted one with the extra man on the ice.
Quick stopped 40 shots on the night, but his one big mistake cost the team. Everything went perfectly for the Kings in their Stanley Cup run last season, but it’s already shaping up to be a much different story this postseason.
