The LA Kings moved back into a playoff spot in the Western Conference for the first time since February 1, as they skated to a 3-2 victory over the New York Islanders on Friday evening at UBS Arena in Elmont, NY. <\/p>\n
Inside the first five minutes of the game, forward Trevor Moore opened the scoring for the Kings with a nice solo effort. Moore blocked a shot at the point in his own zone and used his speed to create a breakaway for himself the other way. Moore worked his way in alone, into the slot off the left wing and fired top shelf, past New York goaltender Ilya Sorokin and in for his eighth goal of the season and a 1-0 advantage. <\/p>\n
Just over 13 minutes into the game, the Kings made it 2-0 as forward Anze Kopitar moved to within one point of the all-time franchise scoring record. Defenseman Mikey Anderson got a shot through from the left point, which kicked to Kopitar in the crease, where he banged it in at the back post for his eighth goal of the season, putting the Kings ahead by two goals midway through the first period.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles capped off a strong opening frame with another goal to take a three-goal lead into the intermission. Forward Artemi Panarin forced a turnover in the neutral zone and immediately pushed the play the other direction. Panarin delayed and fed forward Adrian Kempe driving the net, with the Swedish winger deflecting the puck past Sorokin, with only one hand on his stick, for a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes. <\/p>\n
The Islanders got on the board with a pinball goal just over halfway through the second period, bringing the hosts within 3-1. A shot from the point took a double deflection in the slot, off a skate in front and into the back of the net for the first New York goal of the evening. Forward Emil Heineman was ultimately credited with the goal, his 17th of the season. <\/p>\n
Heineman scored his second goal of the evening early in the third period to bring the Islanders back within a goal at 3-2. Defenseman Matthew Schaefer worked quickly at the center point to change the angle on the his shot release, with Heineman in the slot for another deflection goal, as the hosts pulled to just a goal down. The Kings held on down the stretch to close out the victory at 3-2. <\/p>\n
Hear from Anderson, forward Alex Turcotte and Head Coach D.J. Smith after tonight\u2019s victory. <\/p>\n
Mikey Anderson<\/p>\n
Alex Turcotte
On if he feels like the Kings are starting to get some of their swagger back
For sure. I think everyone is feeling pretty good. We know where we\u2019re at in the standings and it\u2019s not exactly where we want to be at, but I think we\u2019ve been playing the right way pretty consistently the last couple games, since [D.J. Smith has] taken over. Yeah, there\u2019 a good vibe, good energy. Everyone\u2019s playing for each other and it\u2019s been a lot of fun. <\/p>\n
On collecting an assist on Anze Kopitar\u2019s goal, which saw him move one point closer to the franchise record
He\u2019s obviously one of the best 200-foot players ever. He got the puck to me, got it to Mikey and Mikey made a great play to him. It\u2019s obviously pretty cool. Playing with him, I\u2019ve learned so much. I didn\u2019t even know he was that close, so it\u2019s pretty cool. <\/p>\n
On the additions of Scott Laughton and Jared Wright to the Kings and to his line
Laughts has been awesome since being here, great guy too, so we\u2019re really lucky to have him. He just plays the right way. He\u2019s always in the right spot and he makes plays too, he\u2019s good on the puck and he\u2019s playing with confidence. Wrighter is one of the fastest players we\u2019ve played with and he\u2019s making great plays too. So, I think we communicate well and our games definitely fit with each other. <\/p>\n
On taking this momentum into the final two games of the trip
100 percent, we\u2019ve got to get on a roll here and we know that. Every game is important. <\/p>\n
D.J. Smith
On the Kings current level of play and finding their swagger again
Yeah, I think we\u2019re starting to believe that we\u2019re a team that can make some plays. We can hold on to pucks. Some guys are scoring that maybe haven\u2019t scored. We\u2019re blocking shots. There\u2019s a lot of desperation in our game.<\/p>\n
On what he liked most about the first period tonight
Well, we started right away and that\u2019s a really good team over there, that\u2019s a playoff team, that\u2019s a team that\u2019s got some high end talent. We knew that they were coming back from a long road trip, which typically, sometimes you start a little bit sluggish. I just think we got some bounces and played well in the first, they pushed back, their goalie made a lot of made a lot of saves to keep them in it. I thought if we could have got the fourth one, we could have maybe opened it up, but he held them and we had a tough time. <\/p>\n
On the team showing composure when 3-0 became 3-2
Yeah, there was composure, but give them credit. They had all kinds of chances in the third, Kuemps, the shot blocks. I mean, if you look at Schaefer and Barzal and what they created in the third period, and how much zone time they had, we were under siege there, but that\u2019s part of it. Sometimes you push, sometimes they push and I thought there were stretches that we pushed really hard and they held us off. You know what? With the game on the line, they made a lot of good plays. <\/p>\n
On a game like this reinforcing that the Kings can win playoff-style games like this
I think it\u2019s all around the league to be honest. I mean, when you look at it, there\u2019s good players in this league. The offensive players are getting better and better and better. Again, I thought in that second period, we had two breakaways on Sorokin and he made great saves and made it look easy. We had all kinds of looks and he held them and then when it\u2019s their time, our guy held it for us. I think those are two really good teams, but like I said, give the credit to the to the players in this league. There\u2019s some big time skill and when you give them looks, good players make good plays.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notes \u2013
\u2013 Forward Trevor Moore (1-0=1) opened the scoring with his eighth goal of the campaign, his ninth point (4-5=9) in 13 career games against the New York Islanders. This marked Moore\u2019s 13th career game-opening goal (GOG) as a member of the Kings, tying Alex Iafallo (13 GOG) and Craig Johnson (13 GOG) for the fifth most by a U.S. born skater in Kings franchise history.
\u2013 Captain Anze Kopitar (1-0=1) scored his eighth goal of the season, his 448th career goal and 1,306th regular-season NHL point (448-858=1,306). Kopitar leaves the ice tonight a single point shy of tying Marcel Dionne (550-757=1,307) for the LA Kings franchise scoring record.
\u2013 With his 608th career road point (221-387=608), Kopitar breaks a tie with Dionne (262-345=607) for the most such points in Kings history. Kopitar will resume the Kings\u2019 13th set of back-to-back games tomorrow in New Jersey with five points (2-3=5) in his last six games, dating back to March 2 against Colorado.
\u2013 Kopitar concludes his final regular-season meeting with the Islanders this evening with 12 points (6-6=12) in 17 career road games on Long Island, breaking a tie with Butch Goring and (6-5=11) and Wayne Gretzky (4-7=11) for sole possession of the fourth most in Kings franchise history.
\u2013 Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) potted his team-leading 26th goal of the campaign, extending his point streak to a seventh game (5-4=9), dating back to Feb. 28 against the Calgary Flames. This is Kempe\u2019s fifth different streak of at least seven games in length in his career and is the third such streak he has recorded this season, following his efforts from Oct. 18 through Oct. 30 (3-7=10 in 7 GP) and Jan. 17 through Feb. 4 (5-5=10 in 8 GP).
\u2013 Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) notched his 10th helper of the year, his fourth point (1-3=4) in his last five appearances, dating back to his multi-point night against the Islanders (1-1=2) on March 5 at Crypto.com Arena.
\u2013 Forward Alex Turcotte (0-1=1) collected his 11th assist of the season, his second helper in two career visits to UBS Arena (0-1=1 on Dec. 10, 2024).
\u2013 Forward Artemi Panarin (0-1=1) earned his 45th assist of the season with a set-up on Kempe\u2019s goal. This marked Panarin\u2019s 50th career point (19- 31=50) against the New York Islanders, tying Kris Letang (13-37=50) for the seventh most among active players.
\u2013 Goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 21 saves on 23 shots on goal to earn his 16th win of the season.
\u2013 Tonight\u2019s game marked the Kings\u2019 third regular-season win on Friday the 13th, following a 5-0 win over Boston on Oct. 13, 2000, and a 6-5 victory at Vancouver on Oct. 13, 1989.<\/p>\n
The Kings are back in action tomorrow evening at 4 PM Pacific at Prudential Center in Newark, NJ. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The LA Kings moved back into a playoff spot in the Western Conference for the first time since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-523126","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\/523126","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=523126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}