Los Angeles Kings at Ottawa Senators

Quick stops 32 shots, Kings beat Sens 2-0 for 7th win a row

Ottawa has nine players and an assistant coach in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.

“There’s not a guy that I can say didn’t give everything he had,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “Jonathan Quick is the difference ... it’s unfortunate when we’re this short-handed, but I thought our guys couldn’t play much harder.”

On Thursday, goalie Matt Murray, defenseman Nikita Zaitsev and winger Alex Formenton were placed in the protocol. They joined defensemen Josh Brown, Victor Mete and Nick Holden, as well as forwards Austin Watson, Connor Brown and Dylan Gambrell, and associate coach Jack Capuano.

Anze Kopitar and Andreas Athanasiou scored for the Kings. They improved to 8-5-1.

“Tough night, they gave us everything we could handle for a short-staffed team,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “We expected that from them and they gave us everything we could handle. They checked, they did a lot of good things, but we were patient.”

Filip Gustavsson stopped 32 shots for Ottawa. The Senators have lost six straight games at home and are 0-5-1 overall in their last six.

The undermanned Senators also lost defenseman Artem Zub to an upper-body injury midway through the first period.

“It’s not a fun situation,” said Thomas Chabot, who played almost 32 minutes. “We already knew we were missing a lot of players and then you start the game and you lose another defenseman.”

Defenseman Lassi Thompson made his NHL debut for Ottawa and Dilon Heatherington and forward Andrew Agozzino also were recalled from Belleville of the American Hockey League.

Kopitar opened the scoring on a power play with 4:32 left in the second. Athanasiou made it 2-0 with just over three minutes remaining, tipping a point shot.

UP NEXT

Kings: At Winnipeg on Saturday night.

Senators: Host Pittsburgh on Saturday night.

LA leads series 1-0