LOS ANGELES -- Very few people would have predicted a 7-2 Los Angeles Kings victory before their matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes, but that's exactly what happened.
It wasn't just the quantity of goals that was so shocking either, the quality of the goals LA scored was equally impressive. There were a few snipes and even the "gritty" goals from LA came off the back of quality puck movement.
The scoring was started by the Kings' leading scorer, Adrian Kempe, who buried the team's first shot of the night for a vintage Kempe goal.
I'm a long-time believer that what separates good and great scorers is the ability to consistently beat goalies from range and Kempe is one of the best players in the league at scoring on those plays, particularly off the rush.
His ability to turn half-chances into goals, creating something out of nothing, is truly elite.
Take Saturday's goal, for example. Kempe picks up the puck at the red line and attacks in a 1-on-2 situation with Samuel Helenius and Tanner Jeannot changing.
He generates enough speed between the red line and blue line to back Brent Burns off and then pulls the puck into his body and blows the puck past Pyotr Kochetkov from just inside the right faceoff circle.
If that was a one-off kind of play, that would be one thing, but Kempe regularly makes plays like that which are nearly un-defendable for the opposition. Burns can't step up and close the gap because Kempe is one of the fastest skaters in hockey and would burn him wide and it's almost impossible for Kochetkov to track the puck with the power and accuracy Kempe generates from that curl and drag release.
It's an elite goal and the ability to do it regularly makes Kempe one of the best rush scorers in the league. It would be difficult to find five players more dangerous than Kempe off the rush and impossible to find 10.
"If you look at his body of work, he's scored a lot of goals like that," said Hiller after the game. "Not only on his off-side but on his strong side too, so he can get it from both sides. If you let him get his release away, and there's a lot of times guys get a stick on puck and it goes into the crowd, but if you let him get it off, he's got a chance. We know that, anywhere 10 feet over the blue line he's got a chance with his wrister."
Kempe doesn't have the wide arsenal of shots that puts him into the Auston Matthews, Leon Draisaitl and David Pastrnak of goal scorers, but his ability to score off the rush is up there with the league's very best.
For a Kings team that can struggle for goals at times, having a player who can generate goals from nothing is massive and makes him an indispensable part of the team.