With games Friday and Saturday, the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings finished off the four-game Freeway Faceoff series with a home-and-home in the middle of January. That’s too bad. The NHL’s Southern California teams — just 30 miles apart — are in similar, yet different states but almost assuredly won’t meet again this season.
There is a lot on the line for both. Making the playoffs is the goal. For the Kings, it is to finally find some fulfillment out of a win-now direction that has thus far proven futile. For the Ducks, it is to finally be back in the postseason after missing out for a franchise-worst seven years running and to start a new period of success after bottoming out.
The two teams left Honda Center with 51 points, tied with the Seattle Kraken and San Jose Sharks for third place in the Pacific Division and the final wild-card position in the Western Conference. Only the number of games played and wins in regulation time separate the four, and that’s fitting for a group of teams that aren’t particularly good but competitive enough to not be terrible.
Hit the snipe and another SELLOUT crowd goes CRAZY! #FlyTogether pic.twitter.com/LDMJ3yxNzN
— Anaheim Ducks (@AnaheimDucks) January 18, 2026
How the Ducks and Kings arrived here is different. Anaheim is powered by exciting young stars and living with the growing pains that come with trying to level up after digging out of a tunnel of losing. Los Angeles is doggedly clinging to a defense-first system that keeps it in virtually every game but lacks the kind of game-changing talents who can put opponents away.
Perhaps it is no surprise that the Ducks have swung between the high of a fast 11-3-1 start and the low of a 2-11-2 stretch that included a recent nine-game winless streak. Or the Kings not having any kind of streak, not going more than two games without gaining a point but also not winning more than two straight outside of one four-game stretch in November.
It is also no surprise that both Freeway Faceoff games went beyond 60 minutes, with the Kings playing into overtime a league-leading 20 times and the Ducks now possessing 10 their 24 wins through the extra session or the shootout. That won’t change as they head toward the Olympic break and a playoff push through March and April.
“If you look at some different teams in our conference specifically, they’ve all had their highs and maybe their lows,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “Everybody’s gone through that. We haven’t yet hit our high. That’s where I look at the standings. We’ve had our lows, we’ve had a lot of mushy middle. We haven’t had our high yet, and I think some of the other teams have kind of — they’ve gone through a little bit more. Their highs have been higher than ours.
“We need to get ours. And it’s just another way of saying the same thing. We need to get a turn, but I don’t see anybody running away with this thing at all. That’s my opinion.”
Some separation is occurring as the Vegas Golden Knights have won seven in a row to take control of the Pacific and with the Edmonton Oilers in tow, the two division favorites finally looking like such. That leaves the Kings and Ducks in a battle to claim two of the West’s playoff berths as the Colorado-Dallas-Minnesota triumvirate have the Central locked down and Utah is surging to pin down the first wild card.
The Ducks picked up all four possible points by winning 3-2 in a shootout Friday in L.A. and then taking a 2-1 rematch Saturday at home on Mikael Granlund’s overtime strike. We’ll get to the weekend’s difference-making standout, Anaheim’s precocious rookie Beckett Sennecke, much more in an upcoming article. While the Ducks (24-21-3) have pulled out of their tailspin with three straight victories, the Kings (19-16-13) continue to run in place with just one win in seven since beating the Minnesota Wild in back-to-back home games.
“There’s so much parity in this league,” Kings forward Warren Foegele said. “Points are crucial, and we didn’t get the job done.”
It wasn’t an empty Freeway Faceoff for the Kings, but they’re increasingly feeling that way despite the point collected in each game. They sounded like a team worn down, with their No. 31-ranked offense unable to ease the stress of constant nail-biters. The plainspoken Foegele, with an answer to a question of what is missing escaping him, added, “I didn’t think we would keep being in the same situation every game.”
The Kings do have bodies missing, with captain Anze Kopitar sidelined the last seven games, left wing Trevor Moore out for the last 10 and Corey Perry intermittently away from the team as he tends to family health concerns back home in London, Ontario. But so do the Ducks, with No. 1 center Leo Carlsson unavailable through the Olympic break and second-leading scorer Troy Terry on injured reserve. Chris Kreider also missed his second straight game, while Frank Vatrano continues to recover from a shoulder fracture.
Before Saturday’s game, Hiller tackled the subject of needing more from the Kings’ best players. He acknowledged that even if they’re mostly playing the sound, responsible hockey they’ve long championed, it isn’t enough to bring them wins. “Everybody’s got to do a little bit more of what they do, and that’ll get us turned around,” he said.
Adrian Kempe did get their goal Saturday, a clean finish on a five-on-three advantage as the Ducks blazed a path to the penalty box in the second period. But it isn’t much coincidence that it was his first goal during the Kings’ current losing spell. (Going 1-2-4 over the last seven might define this season). The Kings had every chance to clean up after a rough first 20 minutes but couldn’t cash in on any of their other five power plays, all in the second 20.
“I don’t think we were as fluid as we wanted to be in that situation,” said Kings defenseman Brandt Clarke, whose strong overall play earned him a promotion to the top unit. “They kept taking penalties and kept giving us another chance to kind of redeem ourselves. It just didn’t seem fluid. It didn’t seem like we were getting pucks to the net. That’s unfortunate. We have really skilled guys out there who are really smart, that knows what it takes to get it done, but it’s unfortunate in that second. Whether it was just not connecting or just whatever it may be, not having that shot mentality, it’s unfortunate we couldn’t capitalize more.”
More observations from the weekend battle between the archrivals:
Others rose in the absences of key Ducks personnel
Carlsson’s surgery to address a lesion in his thigh could help explain his slump after a brilliant start to his third season. Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said he didn’t know how long his center was dealing with the injury but revealed that it “progressively got worse” and that they were able to nail down the diagnosis before he underwent the procedure Friday.
Playing without Carlsson, Terry and the veteran Kreider (15 goals in 42 games) threw Anaheim’s forward lineup into disarray. But Granlund came through in overtime after Sennecke’s brilliant backcheck against Kevin Fiala to spring the versatile forward. Mason McTavish had the Ducks’ other goal Saturday in finishing a rush after delivering the decisive shootout goal Friday. More will be on the shoulders of McTavish and Granlund while Carlsson is out of action.
Mikael Granlund scored the winning goal in overtime of the weekend’s second matchup. (Gary A. Vasquez / Imagn Images)
“He’s such a good player,” Granlund said. “He’s showed that. Obviously, we want to hit back as soon as possible. It’s always the next man up and like last two games, as a team, we played really good. That’s what our focus is on. It will be every single day.”
Ryan Strome made an impact in what has been a challenging season. A healthy scratch at times and often playing down in the lineup, Strome sparked Friday’s comeback with a goal and triggered the neutral-zone counterattack on McTavish’s goal Saturday.
“I think I’ve wasted a lot of time this year at being frustrated, and it wasn’t really helping,” said Strome, in his fourth season with Anaheim. “Just try to have a good attitude coming to the rink. Try to lead by example no matter what your situation is.”
Newer faces leave an impression
L.A.’s Andre Lee and Anaheim’s Tim Washe earned promotions to the NHL with their great seasons in the American Hockey League. which resulted in all-star selections. Both teams needed them now, and they made the most of their minutes.
Lee, a seventh-round pick in 2019, played 19 games in his NHL debut for Los Angeles last season and scored his second goal in a 4-3 shootout win over Edmonton. He set up Armia’s goal Friday with a fantastic assist. Taylor Ward is another forward short-handed L.A. is counting on.
“The pass on my goal was beautiful,” Armia said. “He’s been great. Wardo’s been great. It’s exciting to see those young guys come in and be ready to play right away. It’s fun to see.”
After Strome’s goal Friday, Washe tied the score by jumping on Jacob Trouba’s shot wide that caromed off the end boards behind the Kings’ net. It was the first NHL goal and point for the 24-year-old, a top undrafted college free agent who captained Western Michigan to an NCAA title last year.
“At first, I couldn’t believe it came right to me there,” Washe said. “A nice little fortunate bounce there. That’s what you dream of. You get excited when the puck’s around the other team’s net. Just great plays all around from linemates and the defensemen there. Yeah, special feeling for sure.”
Byfield continues to run hot and cold
With his goal Friday, Quinton Byfield has five among nine total points in his last 12 games. That’s the kind of production the Kings would love consistently, but its absence has continually raised doubts about him taking the throne from the retiring Kopitar as L.A.’s No. 1 center. (Byfield has nine goals and 28 points in 47 games).
Byfield runs into lengthy goal droughts, and he went 17 games before scoring against Anaheim on Dec. 27. And his play has been uneven in 2025-26. The weekend was an example. Although he scored just 98 seconds into Friday’s game and had four shots on goal, the 23-year-old had more of a presence throughout Saturday’s game as he had 11 shot attempts while playing a game-high 25 minutes, 21 seconds.
“His first period was probably as good as he’s had in a long time, I thought,” Hiller said. “If we can get that speed out of him and the shot more consistently (when) he has that puck, then he’s one of those guys that we are going to rely upon to score a few more goals.”
Viel jumps right into what he does best
The Ducks sent one of their two fourth-round picks in this year’s draft to the Boston Bruins for Jeffrey Viel, who appeared in 10 games with the Bruins this season but has made much more of an impact on the AHL level. Viel, 28, is a hard-nosed grinder who was inserted into Anaheim’s lineup Saturday and dropped the gloves with Kings center Samuel Helenius despite giving up five inches in height.
Viel has racked up 188 penalty minutes in his 65 NHL games with San Jose, Boston and Anaheim. He has topped 100 penalty minutes in four AHL seasons. Fighting might be an antiquated activity in the minds of some, but don’t tell that to Viel. “I’m always down,” he said.