The LA Kings improved to 3-0-0 on their current trip and 8-1-2 on the road this season following a 4-3 overtime victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday evening at Scotiabank Arena in Ontario. <\/p>\n
Just over eight minutes into the game, Toronto opened the scoring through forward Bobby McMann. Kings forward Adrian Kempe wasn\u2019t able to get a shot off just inside the offensive blueline, which sent McMann the other way in transition with speed. He kept the puck himself and while goaltender Darcy Kuemper got a piece of it, the puck trickled over the line and in for the game-opening goal.<\/p>\n
Inside the final four minutes of the opening period, the Maple Leafs made it 2-0. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin took a stick to the face in the corner and as he was still getting back into the play, Toronto defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson fed forward John Tavares in front, where he cashed in his team-leading tenth goal of the season for a two-goal advantage at the first intermission. <\/p>\n
The Kings got on the board midway through the second period, as forward Warren Foegele made it consecutive games with a goal. Foegele took a pass from defenseman Drew Doughty, worked his way into the left-hand circle and beat Toronto goaltender Dennis Hildeby on the glove side for his third goal of the season, bringing the visitors within 2-1. <\/p>\n
For the third straight game, forward Kevin Fiala found the back of the net, as he pulled the Kings level late in the second period. Fiala started the play at the point and after his initial shot from the slot was blocked down, he worked his way to the net, got on the end of a pass from forward Quinton Byfield and scored off a broken play. Fiala\u2019s goal was his team-leading ninth of the season, tying the game at two in the process.<\/p>\n
95 seconds after Fiala tied the game, however, Toronto restored its lead as Tavares scored his second goal of the game to put the Maple Leafs ahead 3-2 through 40 minutes of play. Tavares found himself uncovered in front of the net and after he took a feed from forward William Nylander, he deked to the backhand, around Kuemper, and buried the go-ahead goal. <\/p>\n
After an entire period of pushing for the tying goal, the Kings finally got their reward as forward Alex Laferriere equalized the game at three apiece. Off an extended shift in the offensive zone, defenseman Brandt Clarke got a shot through from the top of the right-hand circle, which Laferriere deflected past Hildeby and in for his fourth goal of the season, as they game progressed into overtime.<\/p>\n
On the first shift of the extra session, Byfield made it a multi-point game as he buried the game-winning goal. The Kings won the opening faceoff and never looked back, as defenseman Drew doughty fed Byfield in his wheelhouse and the latter fired home his second goal in as many games to secure the two points on the road.<\/p>\n
Hear from Byfield, Laferriere and Head Coach Jim Hiller after tonight\u2019s victory. <\/p>\n
Quinton Byfield<\/p>\n
Alex Laferriere
On a deserved win for the Kings tonight
Games like that are tough. When you\u2019re behind in the game but you feel like you\u2019ve been controlling the whole game, it\u2019s tough, but I think that shows the resilience from our group to be able to stick with it and not give up on each other and find it there in the end. <\/p>\n
On the importance of patience when dominating but not leading
Patience is huge. If you look in our locker room, guys like Kopi, Perrs and Dewey, they\u2019ve been through pretty much any kind of game and you look at those guys and they\u2019re patient, they\u2019re not trying to force things. You look at that and you can look at that in yourself and just be like, it\u2019s going to happen and you don\u2019t have to force things. <\/p>\n
On what he saw on his game-tying goal
We had a great o-zone shift, Perrs, Q and I, and it felt like we could have scored a couple times during that shift, but we just stayed with it. Clarkie made an unbelievable play, great shot, and I kind of just threw my stick at it and luckily it went off it and in. Just a great all-around play. <\/p>\n
On what he liked most from the team offensively throughout the game tonight
Yeah, I think being connected. Being connected in the o-zone is something we\u2019ve been preaching a lot and I think those two goals specifically, it really showed. We were getting pucks to the net and being able to win those puck battles back and just keep going at them. I think if one guy is not doing their job out there then we\u2019re not going to hem them in like that. It took all five guys and I think that was just unbelievable, connected hockey. <\/p>\n
Jim Hiller
On his impressions from tonight\u2019s game as a whole
I liked how we played. I know we were trailing, but the important part for us is we didn\u2019t get frustrated and start chasing it and giving them chances to go the other way. I think we stayed in our structure, we didn\u2019t give them much and we just kept throwing it at the net. Eventually, we got one. <\/p>\n
On the team avoiding frustration before the reward ultimately came
It\u2019s really important, because you can get frustrated very easily, especially when you\u2019re down and then it\u2019s not going your way. What happens is the D start pinching, the forwards don\u2019t cover and all of a sudden it goes back the other way, they get three and probably the game\u2019s over. So for me, that was an important part of the game, just to maintain good defensive structure and then stick with it. I\u2019m really proud of the team tonight for that. <\/p>\n
On the fourth line tonight and their usage late in the game
I thought they were really good through 40 minutes. Typically I get into the third period and if we\u2019re trailing, I cut it back and run those guys, but that line was probably our most dangerous line through the third period. It felt like they deserved to be out there at the end. I thought they had a couple setup shifts prior to us scoring, we had some really good chances, spent time in the zone. They definitely earned that opportunity and again, I thought if anybody had a chance to score, it was them.<\/p>\n
On goals in back-to-back games for Quinton Byfield
Now we can stop asking the question why he\u2019s not scoring. You know what, he got the first one was in and around the net and this one, he\u2019s out 30 feet and gets the one-timer. Usually, that\u2019s how it goes. You\u2019ve got to get the ugly one first and then the game opens up for you. In Toronto, I know it\u2019s probably special for him, an OT winner in Toronto. <\/p>\n
On seeing Alex Laferriere get the game-tying goal for the work he\u2019s put in
Laf got off to a great start last season, scoring-wise, this year has been a little slower, but his game is really coming on. I really liked his overall game tonight. He was tracking, did a lot of things tonight, so nice to see him get rewarded with the goal. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Forward Quinton Byfield (1-1=2) collected his 12th assist of the season in the second period of tonight\u2019s contest before firing home his fourth goal of the season to end the game in overtime. A native of Newmarket, Ontario, Byfield now has four points (1-3=4) in three career visits to his hometown. The 23-year-old mirrored his stat line from Tuesday\u2019s contest in Montreal (1-1=2) and scored the game-winner for the second consecutive game. In doing so, Byfield became the second player in Kings history to forge two-straight multi-point games with a game-winning goal on the road before age
24, following Steve Bozek (3-1=4, Oct. 20 \u2013 21, 1981).
\u2013 Of note, current Head Coach Jim Hiller recorded a similar pair of performances (3-1=4, Oct. 15 \u2013 17, 1992) at home, while current Kings President Luc Robitaille is the only player in team history to have composed three consecutive multi-point nights that include a game-winner (6-4=10, Nov. 18 \u2013 25, 1989) before turning 24, all of which were achieved at The Forum. Byfield now has 158 career points (55-103=158), tying Butch Goring (65-93=158) for the 10th most points in Kings history by any skater at age 23 or younger.
\u2013 Defenseman Drew Doughty (0-2=2) picked up his fifth and sixth assists of the season to notch his 82nd career multi-assist game and 133rd career multi-point game, breaking a tie with Alex Pietrangelo for sole possession of the 42nd most multi-point performances by a defenseman in NHL history. Doughty also breaks a tie with Charlie Simmer for the ninth most multi-point games by a Kings skater in franchise history.
\u2013 Forward Warren Foegele (1-0=1) scored for the second game in a row (1-0=1, Oct. 13 at MTL), his third goal of the season. The native of Markham, Ontario, now has four points (3-1=4) in eight career games at Scotiabank Arena.
\u2013 Forward Kevin Fiala (1-0=1) extended his team-lead in goals by finding the back of the net for the ninth time this season. Tonight\u2019s goal counts as his third goal and sixth point (3-3=6) in seven career visits to Toronto. Additionally, the native of St. Gallen, Switzerland, has found the scoresheet in each of the Kings\u2019 three games (3-1=4) of their mid-November road-trip, dating back to Sunday, Nov. 9, in Pittsburgh.
\u2013 Forward Alex Laferriere (1-0=1) tipped his fourth goal of the season past the Maple Leafs\u2019 goaltender to tie the game at three goals apiece. The 24-year-old winger has now scored in each of his last two games against Toronto (1-0=1, March 29, 2025).
\u2013 Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) recorded his third assist of the campaign, his first career point against Toronto.
\u2013 Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-1=1) recorded his seventh assist of the year, his 50th career point (9-41=50).
\u2013 Defenseman Brian Dumoulin (0-1=1) collected his second helper of the campaign on Laferriere\u2019s game-tying marker.
\u2013 Forward Adrian Kempe (0-1=1) broke a temporary tie with Quinton Byfield for the team-lead in assists by earning his 13th helper of the season on the latter\u2019s overtime tally.
\u2013 Goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 12 saves on 15 shots on goal to earn his seventh win of the season and extend his point streak on the road to eight consecutive results (6-0-2), dating back to Oct. 13 in Minnesota.
\u2013 The Kings (7-0-2) extended their road point streak to nine games for the fifth time in the past 20 years, following 2023-24 (11-0-1), 2021-22 (8-0-2), 2010-11 (6-0-3) and 2013-14 (8-0-2), per NHL PR.<\/p>\n
The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 1:30 PM local time, 10:30 AM Pacific, at Canadian Tire Center in Ottawa, Ontario. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings improved to 3-0-0 on their current trip and 8-1-2 on the road this season following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-290711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}