The LA Kings were once again able to collect a point, yet once again came up short beyond 60 minutes as they fell by a 3-2 final score in the shootout against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Inside the game’s opening two minutes, the Kings got the scoring started as forward Quinton Byfield capitalized on a 3-on-1 rush. Skating in transition, Byfield led the play down the right wing, into the offensive zone. Byfield used a pair of teammates as a decoy, kept the puck himself and fired underneath the crossbar and in, past Anaheim netminder Lukas Dostal, for his ninth goal of the season and the early 1-0 advantage.

The Kings doubled their lead midway through the second period as forward Joel Armia found the back of the net in his first game back from injury. Forward Andre Lee was the facilitator, as he drove through the right-hand circle and distributed through the slot to Armia, who fired past Dostal first time for his 10th goal of the season and second point of the evening, after the lone assist on Byfield’s game-opening goal.

Anaheim pushed back, however, with two goals late in the second period to equalize the score through 40 minutes of play.

First, forward Ryan Strome beat Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper with a one-timer from the left side, a bit of an awkward angle, for his third goal of the season, with the visitors pulling within 2-1. Inside the final four minutes of the second period, forward Tim Washe scored his first career NHL goal as he was first to react to a puck off the endboards, tying the game at two at the second intermission.

Neither team found the back of the net in the third period or overtime, which sent the game into a shootout. The teams traded goals in Rounds 1 and 2, with Brandt Clarke scoring for the Kings and Beckett Sennecke scoring for Anaheim, before forward Mason McTavish scored the game-deciding goal in the third round to give the visitors the extra point.

Hear from Armia, Byfield and Hiller after tonight’s game.

Joel Armia

Quinton Byfield
On seeing another winnable game slip away without the two points
Being up 2-0 and giving that back, it’s not good. I feel like last year we were a lot better at shutting those down and that’s something that we’ve got to improve on, especially with two divisional opponents recently. Even just the extra point in overtime, shootout, those are big points too, so definitely want to get those.

On what he can point to as the difference between this year’s team and last year’s team in that department
There might not be just one thing, but just even for myself, I started making some turnovers, giving them some odd-man rushes, starting to get on the wrong side of the puck at times. When you’re up two, you feel a little bit better and try more stuff. So, just kind of stick to how we got that two-goal lead and keep going with that.

On what the Kings did well early and what he felt changed midway through the game
I think we were shooting the puck, breaking the puck out clean, putting it behind them and making their D turn, not giving them much. Then, we just gave them some life back and they started taking it to us a bit.

On his goal tonight and what he saw on that play
Yeah, it was a good play by Army. I was looking for the pass the whole time, I didn’t really see the option and I have my shot, just wanted to take that one on.

Jim Hiller
On whether the Kings are at a place where one point is not enough
Oh, that’s not good enough. No, we’re there. No question. We’ve been there for a while, really. Yeah, no.

On when the game changed after his team had a good start
It was when they scored after we scored, right? Which is a cardinal sin in ice hockey. You don’t give them one up late, last minute, first minute, not on the bump up shift after you score, because obviously it gets them back in the game when you have a chance to really step on them and kill their momentum. What did I see there? I mean, we made some mistakes. I talked about our mistakes were coming down, tonight we made way too many mistakes. We turned the puck over way too often. We had a bad line change, we got caught in the wrong side of it in the neutral zone, their defenseman jump active. So the last seven, eight minutes of the second period, I think that were four or five odd man rushes, which generally are hard to get against us. So that was the issue with tonight’s game.

On the struggle to hold leads this season compared with last season
What I can tell you is this, we have to lock that down. We still have to push and we’ll get our chances. Somebody said we created a lot of chances in the first half of the game. We’ll still get our chances. But for me, and maybe it’s the lack of scoring up until this point this year, we’re still one foot on the gas, one on the break, and we got ourselves caught in between, like I said, four or five times for odd man rushes. We just can’t do that. We’re not going to outscore those mistakes, and when you try to just do it that way, and then then you give up too many and now, you’re in a you’re in a seesaw battle.

On the impact of Joel Armia who returned to the lineup
He sticks out to me. His hockey sense, his strength, you saw the penalty kill, he gets a breakaway. So those are things we’ve missed for sure. I was glad to see, I didn’t expect to play him, I think he played 15 minutes, but he was going pretty good. He’s an important player for us. I think you if you didn’t think about it before, I think it was pretty clear tonight the difference he can make in a lineup.

On the team’s decisions to shoot vs. pass on opportunities
We had opportunities, I think, Laf on the two-on-one in overtime. Very similar situation. In hindsight, I guess if he sauces over the stick and Juice one times in the net, we’re talking about what a great pass. But in hindsight, you got an opportunity like that, you probably want to just pull the trigger. And we had other opportunities during the game, Koozie came down the slot a couple of times. There were others that that we didn’t take. We can’t cut it too fine. We have to take the opportunities when we’re presented with them.

Notes –
– Forward Quinton Byfield (1-0=1) scored his ninth goal of the season, the 60th goal of his career. Per NHL PR, Byfield is the 10th youngest player in LA Kings history at the time of his 60th career goal (23y-150d); Jimmy Carson (19y-168d; Jan. 4, 1988) holds the current mark. Byfield has now scored in back-to-back games against Anaheim (1-1=2; Dec. 27, 2025) and extends his point streak against the Ducks to a fourth game (3-3=6), dating back to Feb. 8, 2025.
– Forward Joel Armia (1-1=2) picked up his eighth assist of the campaign 98 seconds into tonight’s game before scoring his 10th goal of the season midway through the second period, securing his third multi-point effort of the season. Armia becomes the third Finnish skater in Kings history to score 10 or more goals in a single campaign, joining Kai Nurminen (1x) and Jari Kurri (5x).
– With his first-period helper, the native of Pori, Finland, becomes the seventh different skater of Finnish nationality to record an assist in the Freeway Faceoff matchup in Kings franchise history. Armia’s 18 points (10-8=18) through the first 42 games of his first year as an LA King ties Mikko Eloranta’s 2001-02 campaign (9-9=18 in 71 GP) for the 10th highest single-season total by a player of Finnish nationality in Kings history.
– Forward Andre Lee (0-1=1) provided the set-up on Armia’s goal, collecting his first assist and second point (1-1=2) this season. The helper is Lee’s first career point against the Anaheim Ducks
– Goaltender Darcy Kuemper appeared in his 100th game in a Kings uniform, becoming the 13th goaltender to reach the century mark in franchise history.
– Kuemper started his 20th career game against the Anaheim Ducks tonight, becoming the fourth active goaltender to do so, joining Jacob Markstrom (20 GS), Cam Talbot (27 GS) and Jonathan Quick (53 GS). The native of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, becomes the 30th goaltender in League history to start 20 games against Anaheim, and is one appearance shy of tying Devan Dubnyk (21 GS) for the most starts against the Ducks by a Saskatchewan-born goaltender in League history.

The Kings will return to the ice tomorrow evening at Honda Center in Anaheim, as the two teams conclude a home-and-home series at 7 PM.