{"id":108604,"date":"2025-12-25T08:42:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-25T08:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/108604\/"},"modified":"2025-12-25T08:42:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-25T08:42:21","slug":"goal-starved-kings-fall-to-kraken-for-sixth-loss-in-seven-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/108604\/","title":{"rendered":"Goal-starved Kings fall to Kraken for sixth loss in seven games"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

January has traditionally been the harshest time of the year for the Kings<\/a>, who haven\u2019t had a winning record in that month the last three seasons. But winter grew dark and gloomy a little earlier than usual because December has hardly been a walk in the park.<\/p>\n

With Tuesday\u2019s 3-2 loss<\/a> to the Seattle Kraken, the Kings head into the NHL\u2019s three-day Christmas break having lost six of their last seven. And things aren\u2019t getting easier any time soon: when the team returns to the ice Saturday, it will play host to the Ducks, who lead the Pacific Division<\/a> in wins, before closing out 2025 Monday on the road against the Colorado Avalanche, who lead the NHL in wins.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not going the way we all want to,\u201d forward Kevin Fiala<\/a> said. \u201cBut you know, that\u2019s going to happen for everybody. So it\u2019s us who have to do something about it. Who can pull us out of it? Nobody else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not worried. Like, I\u2019m sure we\u2019re gonna get out of this. But it\u2019s not acceptable right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

And if it doesn\u2019t change right now, the rest of the season will be as cold as a winter frost for the Kings. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just that the team is losing, but how it\u2019s losing that is most concerning. The Kings (15-12-9) are 31st in the 32-team NHL in scoring, 31st on the power play and have scored more than two goals just twice in 11 games this month. That\u2019s negated a defense that is second in the league in goals allowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it\u2019s difficult to make sense of things,\u201d coach Jim Hiller said when asked to explain a slide that has dropped the Kings into the middle of the division standings. \u201cWe just feel like we haven\u2019t had a good run of games where we felt like, win or lose, we really like how we\u2019re playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something that we\u2019ll keep driving towards. We just haven\u2019t had it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last season, Hiller\u2019s Kings tied franchise records for wins and points in the regular season and had the best home mark in team history. This season, they\u2019re 4-8-4 at Crypto.com Arena, the second-worst home record in the Western Conference. And that has general manager Ken Holland answering questions about Hiller\u2019s future behind the bench.<\/p>\n

\u201cI expect him to be here the rest of the season,\u201d said Holland last week, not exactly a full-throated vote of confidence.<\/p>\n

Yet for all their struggles, December has just been a continuation of the things that have plagued the Kings all season.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

\u201cWe all have high expectations for ourselves,\u201d Hiller said. \u201cWe just haven\u2019t hit our stride yet. That\u2019s the part that we\u2019re chasing. That\u2019s what we have to focus on. We have to hit that stride.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a difficult time right now, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Hiller tried to shake things up by mixing up his lines, most significantly pairing Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko<\/a> with center Alex Turcotte<\/a>. And while Fiala and Kuzmenko responded with goals, they didn\u2019t come until the Kraken had taken a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n

The first goal came from Jordan Eberle, who was left alone in front of the Kings\u2019 net, giving him plenty of space to settle a pass from Matty Beniers before lifting the puck around goaltender Pheonix Copley<\/a> and under the crossbar for his 13th goal of the season. It was the fourth power-play goal the Kings had given up in the last two nights and the sixth in four games.<\/p>\n

The Kraken doubled their lead on a quirky goal less than eight minutes later, with Copley misjudging a deflected shot from Seattle\u2019s Frederick Gaudreau, allowing the puck to knuckle off his glove then trickle through his legs for the goal.<\/p>\n

Ben Meyers extended Seattle\u2019s lead to 3-0 with less than four minutes left in the second before the Kings finally got on the board with an unassisted goal from Fiala, his 13th of the season, 11 seconds later.<\/p>\n

\"Kings <\/p>\n

Kings coach Jim Hiller watches from the bench during the second period of a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.<\/p>\n

(Luke Hales \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Now the Kings will have three days to think about that, although Fiala said he\u2019d gotten over the game by the time he finished showering.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you win five in a row or lose five in a row or whatever, it\u2019s forgotten. It\u2019s in the past,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we take the good things with us and the bad things we hopefully analyze and get better at.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Hiller, the break couldn\u2019t come at a better time. Or a worse time since the team\u2019s current seven-game slump is its deepest since the winter of 2023-24. That one cost coach Todd McLellan his job<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope the players are able to relax and refresh themselves,\u201d Hiller said. \u201cIt\u2019s been from September till now, with the schedule and how busy it is. And 85% of our games, we\u2019ve been playing within one goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s taxing physically and mentally. So I\u2019m sure those guys need a break.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January has traditionally been the harshest time of the year for the Kings, who haven\u2019t had a winning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108605,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11373,58407,58409,423,2194,664,27528,48,52,51,47,50,49,5463,404,278,7853,9018,58408,4610,5380],"class_list":["post-108604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-andrei-kuzmenko","tag-deflected-shot","tag-fiala","tag-game","tag-goal","tag-king","tag-kraken","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-minute","tag-nhl","tag-season","tag-seattle","tag-second","tag-sixth-loss","tag-thing","tag-well-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}