Kempe also had an assist, and Anze Kopitar scored for the Kings (12-6-7), who extended their point streak to five games (2-0-3). Anton Forsberg made 19 saves.
Los Angeles has gone to overtime in 12 of its 25 games this season.
“I think that we have good D and good goaltending, so we believe in them, obviously,” Kings forward Trevor Moore said. “But, yeah, we’re playing tight games right now. They’re low-scoring games for the most part, so we like those games. We like to kind of sludge it up out there, and we’ll take it.”
Evander Kane scored for the Canucks (10-13-3), who have lost five of their past six games (1-4-1).
“My experience, I’ve played them lots over the last number of years, and it’s always a tight game against them,” Kane said. “They don’t give up a whole lot, and I thought for the most part, we did a good job of staying in the game and getting some opportunities. There wasn’t a whole lot out there for either side. And, obviously, when you get to overtime, lots of different things can happen.”
Lankinen made 21 saves after missing the first two games of a four-game road trip for personal reasons.
“It was the usual performance for him,” Kane said. “He keeps us in games, makes some big stops.”
Kopitar put the Kings up 1-0 at 17:19 of the first period on a wrist shot from the slot off the rush.
Kane tied it 1-1 at 2:52 of the second period on a breakaway after coming out of the penalty box. Drew O’Connor set up Kane to score on a wrist shot from the slot.
“Obviously, you step out of the box and you hope for something like that to happen,” Kane said. “[Tyler Myers] made a good play to deflect it over to Drew, and he made a nice heads up play getting it up right away.”