Kuemper's 41-Save Wall Holds as Clarke Ends It in OT
Darcy Kuemper stopped 41 of 43 shots and picked up an assist on the overtime winner as LA edged the Islanders 3-2. Brandt Clarke's snap shot at 2:43 of overtime — set up by Adrian Kempe and Kuemper himself — was the final word in a game that had everything.
LA came out with purpose. Artemi Panarin opened the scoring at 5:51 of the first, finishing a wrist shot with Clarke and Alex Laferriere picking up the assists. Less than eleven minutes later, Panarin struck again — this time unassisted, burying a snap shot at 16:37 to push it to 2-0. Two goals, two different looks, and the Kings appeared to be in full control heading into the second. That first Panarin goal — the one that broke the scoreless tie — was the turning point that shifted the margin from even to LA's favor, and the Islanders never fully recovered the initiative, even when they clawed back.
New York refused to fold. Victor Eklund's slap shot at 14:06 of the second, assisted by Tony DeAngelo and Emil Heineman, cut it to 2-1 and gave the building some life. Then, early in the third, Matthew Schaefer — on his first goal of the season — wired a wrist shot past Kuemper at 7:06, with Logan Stanley and Brayden Schenn assisting, to knot it at 2-2. The Islanders had erased a two-goal deficit and forced overtime, which looks like a genuine testament to their resilience. The problem is they were throwing 43 shots at Kuemper and getting two past him. That math is brutal.
The story of the night was Kuemper, full stop. Forty-one saves on 43 shots is a performance that wins games by itself, and it did exactly that. Semyon Varlamov was solid — 24 saves on 27 shots — but LA generated far less volume and still found the net three times. Panarin's two-goal night gives him six on the season and appears to cement him as LA's most dangerous offensive weapon right now. Clarke's overtime winner, his second goal of the year, was the exclamation point — and the fact that Kuemper earned an assist on the play is the kind of detail that makes a box score worth reading twice. LA gets the two points. The Islanders get a hard lesson in what happens when you let a hot goalie see the night through.