The LA Kings extended their point streak to four games but dropped another game that extended past 60 minutes, as they fell 5-4 in a shootout against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday afternoon at Honda Center. <\/p>\n
The Kings scored the only goal in the opening period, as they took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin worked the puck to forward Trevor Moore, who had rotated up to the center point. Moore\u2019s shot was blocked down in front but forward Alex Laferriere won the netfont battle and got his shot to go between the legs of Anaheim netminder Ville Husso and in for his sixth goal of the season and a 1-0 advantage. <\/p>\n
Skating on their first power play of the game, Anaheim tied the score at a goal apiece. Off a faceoff win in the offensive end, the Ducks held possession and forward Troy Terry fed forward Chris Kreider in front of the net, with Kreider gaining inside position to bury his 11th goal of the season, tying the game at a goal apiece. <\/p>\n
Just 63 seconds after Anaheim tied the game, forward Kevin Fiala restored the one-goal advantage for the visitors. As the Kings entered the offensive zone in transition, capitalizing on a line change, forward Quinton Byfield fed Fiala, who worked his way in between the circles. With the puck on his forehand, Fiala fired underneath the crossbar and in for his team-leading tenth goal of the season and a 2-1 lead. <\/p>\n
The Ducks made it three combined goals in just 2:03 of game action, as defenseman Owen Zellweger activated offensively to tie the game at two. Zellweger worked his way into the left-hand circle, took a feed from forward Alex Killorn and in one motion, fired low inside the near post and in for his fourth goal of the season. Forward Leo Carlsson collected his second, secondary assist of the game to make it a multi-point performance. <\/p>\n
After a strong first two periods, the fourth line cashed in early in the third period to put the Kings up 3-2. Attacking off the rush, defenseman Brandt Clarke activated down the right wing and found a charging Alex Turcotte going to the net, with the centerman getting a stick on the pass, sending it past Husso and in for his first goal of the season and the third one-goal lead of the day for the Kings.<\/p>\n
Three and a half minutes later, defenseman Joel Edmundson made it 4-2 with a cannon from the right point. Edmundson took a feed from defenseman Mikey Anderson in his wheelhouse and fired it first time, through a screen by forward Corey Perry in front and in for his second goal of the season. <\/p>\n
Midway through the third period, Anaheim pulled a goal back through defenseman Pavel Mintyukov to make it a 4-3 game. Mintyukov activated from the left point, found himself open in the slot and after he took a feed from forward Beckett Sennecke, he found the back of the net, high on the blocker side, for his first goal of the season, as the hosts made it a one-goal game. <\/p>\n
Inside the final two minutes of regulation, Anaheim found the game-tying goal through Carlsson to force the contest into overtime. After the Kings were unable to clear their defensive zone, the Ducks turned the puck around and Carlsson buried a centering feed from defenseman Jackson LaCombe to force the game into 3-on-3 hockey. <\/p>\n
Neither team scored in overtime, which sent things into a shootout, where Anaheim scored twice to secure the second point.<\/p>\n
Hear from Turcotte, defenseman Brian Dumoulin and Head Coach Jim Hiller following today\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
Alex Turcotte<\/p>\n
Brian Dumoulin
On his takeaways from today\u2019s game as a whole
I thought at times, both teams had the momentum, a lot of swings there obviously in that game. I mean, it was a fun game to play in, it was intense. The crowd was good, it was definitely a fun atmosphere. It\u2019s good to see, obviously, we\u2019re two really competitive teams and it was really fun to play in. <\/p>\n
On the Kings getting goals by getting pucks and traffic to the net
You can simplify it too, but I thought we did a good job of creating some chances and trying to stay patient. They\u2019re the type of team that likes to transition fast and try to create stuff off the rush, so I thought we did a good job of hemming them, sometimes creating some turnovers, creating some foot aces. I think it was obviously good for us to score some goals, but obviously had to defend a little bit harder.<\/p>\n
On experiencing the Freeway Faceoff with both teams competitive
I think it\u2019s huge. Last year is the only time I really experienced it, being on the other side, and obviously we weren\u2019t necessarily in a playoff spot, but we were coming. I could see the passion of both fanbases and what it meant to them, like it didn\u2019t matter how your season was going, but if you beat the Kings, it was a good season for them at that point. It\u2019s good to be on this side of it and it\u2019s fun to play in. <\/p>\n
On losing a multi-goal lead and the frequency that seems to happen around the league
It\u2019s tough, it\u2019s really tough because sometimes you get a big save, sometimes they get a flukey goal, sometimes you never really know. It\u2019s always good to have a lead. I think the Kings, especially this year, we\u2019ve done a good job holding those leads and playing a lot of tight games. It\u2019s good to experience it, the Ducks, they kept coming and they capitalized on the opportunities they had. <\/p>\n
Jim Hiller
On his takeaways from today\u2019s game overall
I thought was a really good game, exciting for the fans, I think for both teams. We made probably a couple, two or three mistakes, back half of the third period. Prior to that, I thought we were pretty clean in the third, so it\u2019s disappointing. They finished and we our chances too and we couldn\u2019t finish.<\/p>\n
On how he felt the Kings imposed their style against a very contrasting approach
We wanted to play our game and I thought we played our game. We wanted to make sure that we weren\u2019t giving up a lot of odd mans, that sort of thing, letting them race through the neutral zone, I thought we did a pretty good job of that. I liked our game overall. Their goalie made a few big saves there at the end and we made a couple mistakes that we liked back and they finished. <\/p>\n
On Alex Turcotte\u2019s performance and response to a healthy scratch
It was great, I mean, what a response. That\u2019s exactly what you want to see. It was frustrating for him, but he reset himself. He\u2019s come a long way, Turc has really matured, and he\u2019s earned his everything he\u2019s got. He didn\u2019t get it handed to him. To come back like he did tonight, gets his first goal and was just really good all over the ice. That\u2019s what you love to see.<\/p>\n
On swapping Alex Laferriere and Andrei Kuzmenko in the lineup
We had talked about it, just seeing what they were going to do, who they were going to try and matchup a little bit, they have last change so we could kind of figure out what they wanted to do. Just kind of a game-time adjustment. <\/p>\n
On the difficulty in protecting third-period leads around the NHL this season
Everybody feels like they have a good team and they have a chance to win. Maybe historically, there might have been some teams that were a little bit weaker and if you had a lead, it was probably a little bit easier to hold it. This year, every team\u2019s got some pretty dangerous players, so they feel like, hey, we\u2019re still in this and you get a good push from the other team.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-2=2) notched his eighth and ninth assists of the season to take sole ownership of the most points by a Kings blueliner this season with 12 (3-9=12). The 22-year-old now has a trio of assists in three career visits to Orange County.
\u2013 Defenseman Brian Dumoulin (0-2=2) collected his fourth and fifth helpers of the campaign in his first appearance as a visitor to Honda Center after skating in 61 contests for Anaheim last season.
\u2013 Forward Trevor Moore (0-2=2) logged the Kings\u2019 third multi-point effort of the afternoon by picking up his fifth and sixth assists of the campaign, his second and third through his last two head-to-heads against the Ducks (0-1=1 on April 10, 2025).
\u2013 Forward Alex Laferriere (1-0=1) scored his sixth goal of the season to open the scoring in the first period of the first Freeway Faceoff of the 2025-26 campaign. The native of Chatham, N.J., extends his goal streak at Honda Center to a third consecutive game, having netted the game-winner in each of his past two trips to the building on Oct. 20 and Nov. 29, 2024, and now has five points in his last five games against the Ducks overall (4-1=5), dating back to that road game on Oct. 20, 2024.
\u2013 Forward Kevin Fiala (1-0=1) fired home his 10th goal of the season to become the first Kings\u2019 skater to double-digits in the goal column this year. Fiala has now found the scoresheet (1-2=3) in each of his last three road games, dating back to Nov. 17 in Washington.
\u2013 The 29-year-old winger now has 28 points (20-8=28) in 30 career games against the Anaheim Ducks, with 13 (10-3=13) of those points coming in his 11 games played against Anaheim since joining the Kings. Since Fiala\u2019s NHL debut on March 24, 2015, only Edmonton\u2019s Leon Draisaitl (28G) has scored more goals against the Ducks than Fiala (20G).
\u2013 Forward Alex Turcotte (1-0=1) scored his first goal of the season and has now registered a point (2-1=3) in all three of his career road games against the Ducks, dating back to Oct. 20, 2024.
\u2013 Defenseman Joel Edmundson (1-0=1) scored his second goal of the season, his first career goal at Honda Center. The 32-year-old defender has 11 points on the season (2-9=11), trailing only Brandt Clarke for the most by a defenseman on the team this year.
\u2013 Forward Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) provided his team-leading 14th assist of the year on Fiala\u2019s goal. The primary set-up marks Byfield\u2019s seventh point (2-5=7) in 16 career games played against the Ducks.
\u2013 Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) notched his fifth assist of the campaign and now has five points (1-4=5) in his last four Freeway Faceoff contests, dating back to Oct. 20, 2024.
\u2013 Forward Corey Perry played in his 1,410th career regular season contest today, tying Hockey Hall of Famer Norm Ullman (1,410 GP) for the 41st most regular season games played in NHL history.
\u2013 Defenseman Jacob Moverare skated in his 100th career NHL regular season game tonight. The 27-year-old native of Ostersund, Sweden, is the 10th skater of Swedish nationality to play 100 games in a Kings uniform.<\/p>\n
The Kings are scheduled to return to the ice tomorrow night against the Vancouver Canucks at 6 PM at Toyota Sports Performance Center. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings extended their point streak to four games but dropped another game that extended past 60…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-320431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320431","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=320431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}