The LA Kings snapped a five-game losing streak as they bounced back from Thursday\u2019s lopsided defeat with a 2-0 victory over the Calgary Flames on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena. <\/p>\n
Neither team found the back of the net in a high-shooting first period, as each side put 13 shots on net. Calgary had the more dangerous of the chances, with Kings netminder Anton Forsberg making a few key stops, including a breakaway save on Flames forward Matt Coronato.<\/p>\n
The Kings got on the board midway through the second period with a nice shift to open the scoring. Forward Trevor Moore curled hard out of the corner to create a bit of separation with the puck, before he worked the puck to forward Quinton Byfield behind the net. Byfield rounded the net and got the puck to forward Alex Laferriere in a dangerous area and although his shot was denied by Calgary goaltender Dustin Wolf, Laferriere was quick to react to the rebound, as he buried his 14th goal of the season to put the hosts ahead 1-0. <\/p>\n
After the third period largely came and went with a 1-0 Kings lead, forward Adrian Kempe iced the game with an empty-net goal, off a nifty assist from forward Artemi Panarin, to secure the two points with a 2-0 victory.<\/p>\n
Hear from Laferriere, goaltender Anton Forsberg and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight\u2019s win over the Flames. <\/p>\n
Anton Forsberg<\/p>\n
Alex Laferriere
On the play of Forsberg in the shutout win
He\u2019s huge, in between periods too, every time we have him back there he gives us so much confidence playing in front of him. We know he\u2019s going to bail us out in certain situations and he\u2019s been doing that all year, so it gives us a lot of confidence.<\/p>\n
On the importance of getting back in the win column after a losing streak
Sometimes when losses pile up like that, you feel like you can\u2019t get out of it. But there\u2019s so many games in the year that you know you\u2019re going to get a win eventually, but it\u2019s just about fighting through and getting that first one. I think that was huge for our group, and they\u2019re definitely trying to build on it.<\/p>\n
On how the team played overall and some of their strengths
I think top to bottom, everybody played really well. You look at guys like Ward, and Helenius and Mallot, those guys aren\u2019t in the lineup all year, and they\u2019re in and out, and you see them come in and play like that tonight. It just gives us so much, it refreshes us, and you know how hard those guys are working every day and gives us a boost of energy.<\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s improved puck management
I think we were just being simple. I think coming back from break, it can feel like you haven\u2019t played for a while and you can try and force plays that aren\u2019t usually there. I think for us, it was just about going back and simplifying things, and knowing that the simpler we\u2019ll play, the more that things are going to open up for us and I think that showed a lot tonight.<\/p>\n
On his line with Byfield and Moore
I think I liked just how hard we are on pucks. I think all three of us are really good forecheckers. We love to get pucks back, kind of work in the o-zone and I think that showed a lot tonight. Obviously, Q\u2019s speed and how dynamic he is as a player. Him coming through the middle of the ice is something that I think we want to utilize a lot. It opens up a lot of things for us, and we\u2019re able to kind of get the puck in the o-zone and then just go to work. I think we did a really good job of that tonight and I think my goal was kind of a result of that.<\/p>\n
Jim Hiller
On how important the win was to snap a losing streak
We definitely needed it. We talked before, we had to park the last game. And what I liked most about it was I thought we played better as the game went on, the second period was really good. Third period we didn\u2019t sit back, we still had some real quality chances. They threw some at to net, but I didn\u2019t think we gave up real high, high end chances, and we had a handful of those of our own.<\/p>\n
On the team\u2019s discipline with no penalties called
That\u2019s really rare. But I thought there was a little bit of physicality early, Sammy and Klapka, there\u2019s a few big hits, but it was between the whistles. There wasn\u2019t a lot of stuff after the whistles. Just a clean, well fought, for a 2-0 game, I thought it was entertaining and I thought there was plenty of shots, chances and good plays. Sometimes you score six or seven in a game like that, but tonight both goalies were good.<\/p>\n
On the line of Byfield, Laferriere and Moore
I thought Byfield\u2019s line was really good. There\u2019s no question, they were good both ways. But everybody was, I mean, it\u2019s hard to really single anybody out. I think tonight, it was up and down the lineup, lots of efforts. everybody played, everybody made a contribution.<\/p>\n
On the play of Forsberg in the shutout win
He did make a few series early, the first period was our poorest, and we needed him in that moment. I think he needed that too, so it really just got everybody settled down just a little bit, and we got back into our groove so there\u2019s just lots of positives to take out of tonight.<\/p>\n
On carrying the momentum from tonight forward
Colorado comes in here next and they\u2019re the top of the league right now, so that\u2019s going to present lots of challenges. We\u2019ll have to be as tight as we were defensively tonight against them, because they can sting you in a hurry. So that\u2019ll have to be a focus, but we\u2019ll just have to push too. We created a lot of chances, Panarin in particular tonight was really dangerous. He hasn\u2019t scored, but you can see he\u2019s just missing. So that was good to see him shoot the puck like that. He\u2019ll find the back of the net soon.<\/p>\n
On the way the defense played in the absence of Doughty
I thought they had a good night. We blocked a lot of shots, I don\u2019t know who\u2019s got the final number, but there were a lot of shot blocks. I know Moverare in particular, I think he had four, but I thought there wasn\u2019t a lot of extra rebounds around the net, and they did have five or six three on twos that I thought we defended pretty well. Also, I thought that was an important part of our defense and I think the last couple games, we haven\u2019t defended those very well, so that was probably a difference and a strength of theirs tonight.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Forward Alex Laferriere (1-0=1) scored his 14th goal of the season, breaking a tie with Quinton Byfield (13 G) and Andrei Kuzmenko (13 G) for sole possession of the third-most goals by a Kings skater through the first 59 games of the 2025-26 season. Laferriere now has points (1-1=2) in both home games played against Calgary this season after recording an assist on Dec. 13, 2025.
\u2013 Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) sealed tonight\u2019s shutout victory, finding the empty net for his team-leading 22nd goal of the season. By doing so, Kempe has now found the scoresheet in his last seven consecutive home games against the Calgary Flames (7-3=10) dating back to April 4, 2022. Kempe\u2019s active run against the Flames at Crypto.com Arena is the 11th such streak of at least seven games in franchise history and is the longest since Luc Robitaille posted an eight-game home point streak from March 2, 1993, through Jan. 14, 1999.
\u2013 Forward Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) recorded his 20th assist of the year with the primary set-up on Laferriere\u2019s tally. The 23-year-old secures his third consecutive 20-assist season with his 33rd point (13-20=33) of the 2025-26 campaign.
\u2013 Forward Trevor Moore (0-1=1) collected his ninth assist of the season with a secondary helper on Laferriere\u2019s goal, his 16th point (7=9=16) of the season.
\u2013 Forward Artemi Panarin (0-1=1) picked up his 41st assist of the campaign with a helper on Kempe\u2019s goal, his third helper (0-3=3) through as many games played with the Kings. Per NHL PR, Panarin (19-41=60) became the eighth undrafted player since 1964 (when the NHL Draft was introduced) to record 10 or more 60-point seasons. The others are Wayne Gretzky (19), Phil Esposito (14), Adam Oates (12), Peter Stastny (12), Martin St. Louis (11), Dino Ciccarelli (11) and Joe Mullen (10).
\u2013 Goaltender Anton Forsberg turned aside all 29 of Calgary\u2019s shots on goal tonight, recording his second shutout and 10th win of the season. Today\u2019s blank-sheet was the 10th of Forsberg\u2019s career, making the native of H\u00e4rn\u00f6sand, Sweden, the ninth goaltender from his home country to record 10 shutouts in the NHL.<\/p>\n
The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings snapped a five-game losing streak as they bounced back from Thursday\u2019s lopsided defeat with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":511548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-511547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=511547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/511547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/511548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=511547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=511547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=511547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}