PRESEASON FINAL – Kings 4, Golden Knights 6 – Kempe, Durzi, McLellan

The LA Kings fell by a 6-4 final in their second to last game of the preseason, the annual Frozen Fury tilt in Salt Lake City.

The Kings opened the scoring less than two minutes into the game through an exciting individual effort from Kevin Fiala. After he took a cross-ice pass from Adrian Kempe, Fiala weaved his way into the attacking zone, dragged the puck to his backhand and snapped a shot off the rush past Vegas netminder Logan Thompson for the game’s first goal.

Midway through the opening period, the Kings doubled their advantage through Vilardi, who made it three goals in his last two games. Defenseman Brandt Clarke and forward Trevor Moore connected well off the rush, with Moore rounding the net to hit Vilardi in tight, where he snuck his shot past Thompson for a 2-0 lead.

Vegas responded to halve its deficit, however, late in the first period. Reilly Smith collected the goal for the Golden Knights, off of assists from defenseman Brayden McNabb and forward Jack Eichel, with the two teams entering the intermission at 2-1.

The Golden Knights scored three times in the second period to take a 4-2 lead into the second intermission.

First, defenseman Brayden McNabb tied the game at two with a shot through traffic from the center point, as his slap shot evaded bodies and Kings netminder Cal Petersen to knot the score. Vegas took its first lead of the evening just past the game’s halfway mark as Chandler Stephensen finished from close range, just after the Kings completed a penalty kill, to push the score to 3-2.

The third Vegas goal may have looked differently in the regular season, but without the benefit of replay or challenges it worked in favor of the visitors. At the offensive end, T.J. Tynan appeared to tie the game at three, but the play was ruled no goal on the ice. Moments later, forward Jonathan Marchessault scored at the other end for Vegas, pushing the score to 4-2.

The Kings pulled one back just over two minutes into the third period, as Moore cashed in on the man advantage for his first goal of the preseason. With the hosts on the power play, Arthur Kaliyev’s shot was kicked aside by Thompson, with Moore on hand just outside of the crease to put home the rebound from close range to make it a 4-3 game.

Vegas answer with a power-play goal of its own, however, with Smith burying his second goal of the game. Stationed in the right-hand circle, Smith wired home a pass from Mark Stone to extend the Golden Knights’ advantage back to two goals.

Inside the final few minutes of regulation, the Kings pulled back another goal, again on the power play, to make it a 5-4 game. Stationed at the center point, defenseman Sean Durzi sent a shot towrads the net, almost looking for a defelection, but the shot went clean through to give Durzi three points on the evening.

The Golden Knights capped the scoring with Alex Pietrangelo empty-net goal from below the far goal line, bringing us to our final score of 6-3.

Hear from Kempe, Durzi and Head Coach Todd McLellan following the game.

Adrian Kempe
On his building chemistry with his line, and tonight’s overall play
I think it’s been getting better and better. I think the power play has been good ever since the first game. Five on five, I feel like we’ve been getting better and better throughout the preseason. We had some ups and downs tonight, but overall we had some good looks, obviously scored one goal and one goal that they couldn’t see was in. I think that’s something positive to build on, tough that we lost but I think it’s going in the right direction.

On the evolving LA Kings power play
Yeah, I think both units have been doing great on power play. We have got some structure to it, we have guys who can play everywhere, we have a lot of players who can shoot the puck. We changed up some things from previous years and it’s working so far. You’ve got to be prepared, when season starts. team’s are going to be scouting, they’re going to know what we’re going to do, so we’ll need some other plans. I think overall right now it’s looking good.

On what the team still needs to polish before Opening Night on Tuesday
I mean, go back tomorrow and look at what we could have done better tonight. I think overall, our game is coming together. Still a couple of parts in the game where we can get better but overall, I think we played two good periods tonight and we needed to play three to beat this team or any team in the league. There’s those couple of things, but I think we’re moving in the right direction and we’re happy.

Sean Durzi
On getting back into a game tonight for the first time in preseason
Yeah, at the beginning of the game, I mean I was pretty fired up for the game. Even though it’s an exhibition, it was a lot of excitement, a lot of energy, it felt great to be out there with the guys again competing. I probably wanted a little bit of a better game, that’s just the way it goes.

On the most challenging part of playing in game action again
Yeah, right away, it’s defensive communication with my teammates and making reads in the d-zone. It happens quick, especially after not playing and coming right into it. Talking to guys, you want to make that switch a little quicker, give them a little less time and I think I was just a step slow with my reads, but I’m going to work at it, it’s just reps, talking about teammates and going over the video. It’s getting back into that groove and being hard on myself but learning from it. We don’t have much time here, so I’ve got to get going.

On balancing what he needs to do to be ready for opening night versus wins and losses in preseason
Although it’s an exhibition game, we’re here to win and I think as a team that’s important to approach every single game the same way and know what our identity is, build our identity and trust it. Quite honestly, it’s what preseason is for, it’s what you practice for, it’s how you play. For the team, it’s like I said just sticking together and playing for each other. Personally, I got first game under my belt tonight and like I said, making reads, talking to my teammates, getting used to playing with them again.

Todd McLellan
On if he got the evidence he needed from players who may have played their last preseason game tonight
Yes and no, I don’t think it’s ever complete because there are guys that elevate, guys that fall off. The best thing that I can tell you is that there’s a group that we’re really happy with and there’s a group where a lot of them aren’t here anymore, there’s still a few that aren’t quite going to get it done. That’s just the way it is, not everybody can play. Our big concern is that middle group, what are they going to do and when are they going to do it? We’ve got three or four days left here before we’ve got to play that team again. Obviously, both clubs are going to get better, they’re going to put different players in the lineup but we’ve given up 10 goals in the last six periods we played. That’s not who we are and that’s not how we should be playing.

On that drastic switch from the first few, low-scoring games to the last two
It’s a little bit of both, the lineups have gotten stronger and on one side of the coin, we’ve been able to score a lot more and I think sometimes when that’s begins to happen, you forget who you are, you want to get out and, everybody wants to be a goal scorer. There were situations on the rink today, where we had to decide whether we were going to be on the North or the South side of the puck and players that normally would make good decisions in those situations chose the wrong side. I know they’re better than that and that’s why we’re waiting for them. They’ve got to make these decisions now instead of seven, eight, ten games into the season, when they realize it’s a little bit too late. So, not much we can do, we’re counting on them, we trust that they will. One more game to prep and then away we go.

On seeing Sean Durzi back with the group for the first time in an exhibition game
It’s amazing what can happen in two weeks. Players get their legs underneath them, they get a sense of timing, they have some spacial awareness on the ice. When players are coming at them, it starts to speed up a little bit and Durz is jumping in at that point, that’s going to be the same thing with Arvidsson. It’s not an easy thing to do, but I thought he did some good things on one side of the puck and others that he has to sharpen up.

On the atmosphere tonight in Salt Lake City
Yeah, you know what, every time we come here, the fanbase here in Salt Lake City is a really good hockey one. It’s not just a basketball city or a college city, it’s a hockey city. From what I hear, the minor hockey programs are really strong, the game is growing and to have that type of crowd turnout and cheer for their favorite team, it’s really important. We appreciate them.

Notes –
– Defenseman Sean Durzi played his first game of the 2022 preseason and collected three points (1-2-3) in tonight’s game
– Forward Gabe Vilardi scored for the second consecutive game and has three goals over those two games
– Forwards Trevor Moore (1-1-2) and Arthur Kaliyev (0-2-2) each collected two points in tonight’s game
– Defenseman Brandt Clarke collected an assist and was +1 in tonight’s game
– The Kings have now scored a power-play goal in five consecutive preseason games

The Kings are set to return to action tomorrow morning, with an 11 AM practice at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.