5-4 in a shootout<\/a>, back on Nov. 28 at Honda Center.<\/p>\nFor the Kings, Alex Laferriere recorded his first career hat trick. Quinton Byfield burst out of his doldrums with a goal and an assist. Drew Doughty and Trevor Moore both added a goal.\u00a0 An\u017ee Kopitar set up all three of Laferriere\u2019s tallies, while Brandt Clarke and Brian Dumoulin each contributed two primary assists. Anton Forsberg made 24 saves in his sixth start in seven opportunities since Darcy Kuemper suffered an upper-body injury on Dec. 15.<\/p>\n
Mason McTavish notched the Ducks\u2019 lone goal. Luk\u00e1\u0161 Dost\u00e1l also stopped 24 shots and also made his sixth start in seven opportunities. Since returning from injury, he\u2019s gone 2-4-0. He had previously had strings of three and six consecutive wins, respectively.<\/p>\n
Both clubs have now won only twice in their past eight games.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nice [to get away over the holidays], but once you come back to the rink, you get reminded a lot of what did happen and what should happen going forward,\u201d Kopitar said. \u201cWe were able to come out strong and really get it going early.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kings had been starved for goals, scoring only 11 in their past seven games, but they feasted with a pair in less than one minute of the first period. They came between the 3:03 and 3:56 marks, followed by two more at 10:21 and 19:02.<\/p>\n
During their stretch of six losses in seven games, they didn\u2019t score three goals in an entire contest once, nor had they done so in any first period this season.<\/p>\n
Yet at the first intermission, they led 4-0 off their highest-scoring period of their campaign.<\/p>\n
So was it more joy or relief for the Kings?<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth, really,\u201d Kopitar said with a smile. \u201cWhen we were on that extended streak of not being able to put the puck in the net, you get to thinking and you get discouraged a little bit. To see a few go in tonight, especially after a break, is obviously a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
First, Troy Terry\u2019s giveaway to Corey Perry sent the Kings off on a rush that culminated in Byfield\u2019s backhand feed for Doughty\u2019s backhand finish. Doughty\u2019s third goal of the season was his first since Nov. 4, though he was sidelined for more than two weeks by a foot injury. Byfield had not recorded a point since Nov. 29.<\/p>\n
Moore netted his first goal since Dec. 4 when he sealed off Drew Helleson at the net front to tip home Dumoulin\u2019s shot. Moore\u2019s fifth goal gave the Kings a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Laferriere had been robbed by Dost\u00e1l on a pass from below the goal line to the low slot from Kopitar. This time, he scored off a nearly identical dish from Adrian Kempe, with Kopitar earning the secondary assist on Laferriere\u2019s redirection.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter I scored the first goal, (Kopitar) was joking that if I didn\u2019t score that one, he wasn\u2019t going to pass to me anymore,\u201d Laferriere said.<\/p>\n
Byfield broke through on the power play, where newfangled units snapped a 13-for-107 stretch with a conversion that put the game out of reach after 20 minutes. The third time was a charm for Clarke, as he tried to get the puck through from the blue line twice and then created a goal on his third attempt. He curled above the right circle and flicked a shot that Byfield deflected off Dost\u00e1l\u2019s pad and into the net. It was Byfield\u2019s fifth goal of the season and first since Nov. 13, an 18-game span.<\/p>\n
The Ducks were out-shot 17-7 and their only truly dangerous moment was Cutter Gauthier\u2019s partial breakaway following an Andrei Kuzmenko turnover at the blue line. Forsberg\u2019s pad mopped up any untidiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very evident that they were the hungrier team, and they set the tone right from the get-go,\u201d Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said.<\/p>\n
In the second period, that shifted as the Ducks found their footing and cashed in with the extra man. Beckett Sennecke\u2019s miss from in tight created a scramble and a point-blank opportunity for McTavish\u2019s ninth goal of 2025-26, two ticks past the match\u2019s halfway mark.<\/p>\n
The Kings gave up just two power-play goals in November but finished December ceding 13. The Ducks had gone 3 for 40 overall on the power play and 1 for 27 on the road before McTavish\u2019s tally.<\/p>\n
The Ducks dominated the second period with a 12-1 shot advantage \u2013 Kings coach Jim Hiller called it \u201ca tale of two periods\u201d \u2013 but had only one goal to show for it.<\/p>\n
They continued to press early in the third until Laferriere drove in the dagger. Dumoulin\u2019s skyward lob allowed Laferriere to skate under the puck behind the defense. He dragged the puck onto his backhand for his first goal in seven games. Saturday marked his first multi-goal showing since Nov. 2, 2024.<\/p>\n
After his goal at 4:24, he completed the hat trick with 6:45 to play, pushing his season total to double digits.<\/p>\n
Laferriere zoomed up the left-wing wall, banged into Ian Moore and then occupied two defenders before dropping the puck to Kopitar. Laferriere then got off the wall, ducked behind the play and reappeared in the high slot to fire a one-timer that bounced off the ice and into the net.<\/p>\n
For the Ducks, a skate malfunction sent Frank Vatrano face-first into the boards just before the seven-minute mark of the final frame. He left the ice and did not return after sustaining an apparent shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis team has been pretty resilient. When we have had a bad game, we\u2019ve bounced back with a good one. We just have to build a couple good games in a row,\u201d Ducks winger Alex Killorn said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The Kings were in dire need of a jolt offensively and they got it during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111235,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,824,165,164,1706,404,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-111234","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-anaheim-headlines","11":"tag-anaheim-news","12":"tag-los-angeles-kings","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111234","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=111234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}