With a 1:3 record for team LA’s games, there is an acute threat of being eliminated with the Oilers for the third time in a row right in the first round of the elimination part.
“I think Dave was catching well. It’s disappointing that no goalkeeper wins if we don’t score a single goal ourselves. He did his job, there’s no doubt about that, but we just have to score,” despaired Kings coach Jim Hiller.
With Rittich behind him, the whole home team was much more responsible. He allowed only 13 shots on goal to the opponents from Canada and blocked 17 of them. At the same time, players from California fired at Stuart Skinner thirty-three times, but to no avail.
“We haven’t played this well in the series yet,” said the coach. “But special teams decided, we didn’t win this battle.”
Hiller opted for Rittich on Sunday after Cam Talbot, the team’s No. 1 pick, averaged 5.30 goals per game and 86.1 percent save success in his previous three games with the Oilers.
“Cam has done a decent job, but David has been a really good catch for us all year,” Hiller explained of his selection. “It’s been some time between his starts in the last six weeks, but I’m not worried about him at all,” said the coach about the goalkeeper, who last caught on April 13.
But Rittich once again proved that he is able to start after a long match break and not collapse from it. In five starts in goal after more than a week, he was 4-1-0 in the regular season with a 95.3 percent save percentage and 1.61 goals per game average.
“Even if he sat for a while, he came and did an excellent job,” praised the coach. He was even more annoyed that Rittich’s impulse was not used by his teammates. “We have to look at the video to see what we did wrong in front of their goal,” Hiller said.
Now it seems logical that he should send Rittich to the Kings’ goal again from the beginning on May 1st. LA fans believe ‘Big Save Dave’ will extend their season even further.
