FINAL – Kings 5, Kraken 3 – Anderson, Vilardi, McLellan

The LA Kings made it five consecutive wins with a 5-3 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday evening at Climate Pledge Arena.

The Kings got a goal and two assists from Gabe Vilardi, while forwards Phillip Danault, Trevor Moore, Lias Andersson and Andreas Athanasiou all scored in the victory. Goaltender Jonathan Quick made 37 saves on 40 shots to earn the win.

The Kraken opened the scoring with the lone goal of the first period, coming just 61 seconds before the first intermission. Stationed in the offensive zone, forward Yanni Gourde centered the puck to forward Jared McCann, who buried from the slot for his team-leading 27th goal of the season.

Seattle then made it 2-0 early in the second period through forward Ryan Donato. The Harvard product weaved through the offensive zone, deked onto his forehand and slotted past Quick to put the hosts ahead by a pair.

The Kings pushed back, however, with two goals in a space of just 3:30 to tie the game at two midway through the second period. First, forward Blake Lizotte fed Vilardi in the slot, with the forward shifting his hips and firing top shelf in one motion for his fourth goal of the season. Just over three minutes later, Danault tied the game at two, as he finished a centering feed from the speedy Viktor Arvidsson.

Less than a minute after Danault’s goal, however, the Kraken regained their one-goal advantage, courtesy of Eberle. After he took a feed from rookie forward Matty Beniers, Eberle walked down the slot and fired home on the glove side, the 21st goal of the season for the NHL All-Star.

Late in the period, the Kings capped off a five-goal middle stanza to push the game tied at the second intermission. Vilardi started the play, as he fed Matt Roy into space, with the defenseman hitting Moore at the back post for the slam dunk. With the secondary assist, Vilardi netted his first multi-point game of the season.

Early in the third period, the Kings took their first lead of the evening through Andersson. After a good shift along the boards by the fourth line, Brendan Lemieux fed Andersson in front, where he buried th shot first time for his first non-shootout goal of the season. Andersson nearly made it a multi-point game 16 seconds later, as he fed Sean Durzi in the slot, but the defenseman’s shot was ruled off for goaltender interference.

Athanasiou then iced the game late in the third period with the empty-net goal.

Hear from Vilardi, defenseman Mikey Anderson and Head Coach Todd McLellan following the win.

Mikey Anderson

🔊 Mikey Anderson talks with the media postgame#GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/iZcE14BZaM

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 28, 2022

Gabriel Vilardi
On the team clinching a playoff berth
It’s really cool. Obviously I haven’t been here all year, so it’s a little different for me, but just coming in here, joining the team, ever since I’ve been here I feel like the team is clicking, we’re gelling. It’s definitely really nice, for me it’s my first playoffs and I’m really excited.

On the opportunity over these final two games to prove he should be in the Game 1 conversation
Yeah, I haven’t played in two weeks now, it was my first game back so I’ve got to take whatever opportunity I have and show them that I can play. Like I said at the intermission, I want to play. They drafted me, I want to play and I want to help the team.

On the play of his line, down 2-0, in helping to turn the game around
I thought our line played well, I thought all of our lines played well and created chances, all of our lines could have scored tonight. It was nice that we buried on our chances, it was good.

On what he feels changed from the first period to the final 40 minutes
A lot of guys haven’t played and were stepping back into the lineup, first game in two weeks. They came out better than us in the first period, we weren’t very hard to play against, so they took advantage of us and Quickie made some big saves, that’s what he does. It gave us a chance to come back.

Todd McLellan
On the team’s comeback mentality tonight after a slow start
That was evident, but I don’t think we should have put ourselves in that situation. I didn’t think we played with any purpose in the first period. We played because the game was scheduled and that was really it. We weren’t getting any better, we were forming bad habits and we had to talk about it between the first and second. After that, I thought we began to play with purpose. They play a heavy, hard game, they’re a tough team to play against and they tested a lot of our players that needed testing, that haven’t played for long time, or have been injured. A lot of our guys needed that.

On if having several players playing for the first time in a couple weeks impacted the slow start
I think it did, and also the coaching staff, the decisions that we and management made with the lineup also sends a different message to the group, maybe it isn’t as important, but that wasn’t the case. We had to fix that between the first and second. We’re making decisions going forward on who can help us next week and if things go well for us, we plan to play for a long time, we need everybody involved. If you can’t come into this environment and contribute, why would we believe you could do it three weeks from now in Round 2 or 3, if we’re fortunate enough to get there. I don’t think our guys, and there’s a lot of young players, first-time guys going through this, understood that. We had to make that real clear.

On Mikey Anderson in his first game back from injury
I thought he was looking to get physical right away, to test his ability to do that again. The situation he was hurt in presented itself basically on the first shift and he got involved in it. I think from that point on, he got comfortable. There’s always going to be rush, there’s timing, there’s lung and legs that have to get back to game form, but the ability to play him for 25 was important and the back-to-back will be even better, because he’ll have to play with a little bit of fatigue now and that will push him even more.

On if it was good to have lower-pressure situation to work Anderson back in
Yes, and I know what we would have done, had we not clinched and by clinching, it gave a player who had missed the last 22 games, and an important player, a chance to work his way back in, and others.

On the response in the second period
That is in our DNA, that’s a little bit of our identity. They normally respond and I would have been disappointed if they didn’t respond, because it’s expected of them. They’ve done that for seven months now. Sometimes, you just need to be reminded of the importance of situations. They took it to heart and they did something about it. You think even in the response after the first period, we got scored on right away, so we could have went the other way even more, but we dug in and credit them.

Notes –
– With a goal and two assists on the evening, forward Gabe Vilardi picked up his first multi-point game of the 2021-22 season.
– Forwards Phillip Danault (27) and Trevor Moore (17) extended their career-best goal totals with second-period tallies.
– Forward Andreas Athanasiou also had a multi-point game with a goal and an assist.
– Forward Lias Andersson collected his first non-shootout goal of the season with the go-ahead goal early in the third period.
– With an assist on Danault’s goal, forward Viktor Arvidsson now has seven assists over his last seven games played
– In his first game since March 7, defenseman Mikey Anderson collected an assist, a +1 rating and logged 24:27 of ice time.

The Kings are not scheduled to hold a morning skate tomorrow in Vancouver and will return to action tomorrow evening against the Canucks.