FINAL – Kings 3, Golden Knights 4 – Vilardi, Kopitar, McLellan

The LA Kings started off the regular season with a a difficult defeat, by a 4-3 final against the Vegas Golden Knights.

Forwards Gabe Vilardi, Adrian Kempe and Arthur Kaliyev each scored for the Kings, with Vilardi also adding an assist, but a late Vegas goal cost the Kings a point and the chance at a second one.

The Kings opened the scoring with the lone goal from the first period, as Vilardi picked up where he left off during the preseason with the season’s first goal. After Vilardi set up Quinton Byfield for a good look in front, Byfield retrieved the puck and returned the favor, with Vilardi firing home from the top of the left-hand circle. Byfield and forward Alex Iafallo picked up the assists, the first point of the season for both players.

Vegas responded early in both the second and third periods to take a 2-1 lead, its first lead of the night. Coming off of a power play, which the Kings killed off, Jonathan Marchessault and William Karlsson executed a give-and-go off the rush, with Marchessault finishing what he started to even the game at one. Vegas also struck in the first two minutes of the third period, with Jack Eichel finishing a rebound from a tight angle for his first goal of the season.

The hosts responded, however, with Adrian Kempe’s first goal of the season. Moving in from the center point, Sean Durzi used excellent vision to find Anze Kopitar, who rounded the net and hit Kempe in front for the tap-in goal. Kopitar’s assist gives him 22 points from 16 career season-opening games, second most in the NHL in that span behind Alex Ovechkin.

The Golden Knights answered, however, with the game’s first power-play goal to retake a one-goal advantage. With the Kings on their fifth penalty kill of the evening, Vegas executed a shot-pass from the point, with Alex Pietrangelo putting the puck on William Karlsson’s stick in the slot for a deflection that beat Quick for the 3-2 advantage.

Though it came just after a power play expired, the Kings answered off of a power play of their own to tie the game at three. The second unit created the play as Trevor Moore in front, who got the puck to Arthur Kaliyev, who made no mistake with the game-tying goal from close range.

A costly turnover inside a minute to play sent the game Vegas’ way, however, costing the Kings a point late in regulation. A failed outlet pass from Durzi to Trevor Moore up ice eventually led to Mark Stone picking up the game-winning goal from the slot, giving the Golden Knights both points in a 4-3 victory.

Hear from Vilardi, Kopitar and Head Coach Todd McLellan.

Gabe Vilardi

Anze Kopitar
On the takeaways from tonight’s game, and his positive takeaways
It’s certainly a loss that’s tough to swallow right now, because there were a couple of goals that were clearly off of our mistakes. Positives were that we scored a power-play goal, we battled back a couple of times, especially in the third. I’m sure we’re going to look at some stuff to improve on and keep building on it.

On if he feels like the team was ready coming out of preseason play
Yeah, I think so. For the most part, the d-pairings, the lines were intact throughout the preseason, not swapping around too much. There’s certainly some chemistry, but like I said, there’s always room for improvement and that’s what we’re going to do.

On cleaning up the self-inflicted goals against tonight
Yeah, we’ll correct that for sure. You can chalk it up to a first game and all of that, but the bottom line is that we just can’t afford to lose a game like that, especially with the amount of mistakes that we made.

On the confidence that Jonathan Quick instills when the team is down by a goal
A ton. He’s proven it for 15 years, so it’s certainly something that we’ve talked about before and I’m sure we’re going to talk about again moving forward.

Todd McLellan
On the most disappointing takeaway from tonight, and the goals conceded
Well, the end result [was the most disappointing thing], because we were still in it at the end of the night, so losing a game that we got an outstanding effort by our goaltender and we still had a chance to win, still had a chance on point, really. Obviously the focus is going to be on the play at the end, which makes no sense, it’s hard to defend it, but our team gave up 51 shots on goal tonight. When you look at the night, the first goal against was just terrible game management, coming out of the penalty box and not being aware. The second one is at the back end of a power play, you have to rewind the video a little bit, we were on the power play and we negated it with the offensive zone penalty, so terrible game management there. Third one, an actual power-play goal and the fourth one was just stupidity. A lot of it is self-inflicted but you also have to give them credit. They put a lot of pressure on us and they created a lot of turnovers and a lot of pressure on our net, so we’ve got work to do.

On the game management mistakes the group made this evening
We’ve preached and preached about it, but sometimes you’ve got to get hit pretty hard with a 2×4 and maybe this was it. If you look at some of the penalties we’ve taken throughout exhibition season, I think I mentioned it a few times, we were penalized more away from our net than we were near our net and what I mean by that is neutral zone and offensive zone. Maybe it’s not important yet, I don’t know, but it’ll cost us eventually and it did tonight. Then, it’s simple game management things. Knowing where the puck is coming out of the penalty box on a line change you’ve got to be aware of that. Missing the net on that play. The end, a set breakout that we work on all the time, you’ve got numerous options. That is all game management, that’s getting engaged and ready to go. Their team did a better job of it than we did tonight.

On Gabe Vilardi’s progress and strides he’s taken
The camp was pretty open. We had an idea of what the roster was going to look like and then there was going to be a competition for some remaining spots, as well as spots in the lineup and on the powerplay. What he’s done is he’s come in and won ice time and he’s earned the opportunity to be in key situations and he continued to play. I thought he was one of our better players again tonight. Self satisfaction and individual growth is great and we need that from Gabe and we’re proud of him, I think he’s going to continue to do those things. As we drive home tonight, we’re not going to be too concerned about number 13.

On if there was any connective thread between penalties in preseason and tonight
We can tell them that you just don’t turn the light switch on when the season starts but sometimes you have to live it a little bit and we mentioned it virtually every game in the preseason. Starting in San Jose, we were shorthand five times in the first period. We brought it up and we brought it up and when you’re in one-goal games, those moments cost you both offensively and defensively and it did tonight.

Notes –
– Jonathan Quick stopped 47-of-51 shots, marking the most by a Kings goaltender in a season-opening game. Quick surpassed Rogie Vachon’s (45, 10/7/1972) existing team record.
– Anze Kopitar collected his 22nd career point in a season opener, the second most in the NHL during Kopitar’s active career. Kopitar, who has points in five straight season-opening games, is now one point behind Dave Taylor (1,069 points) for the third-most in team history.
– Gabe Vilardi opened the LA Kings scoring account for the season with his first-period goal. Vilardi added an assist in the third period, giving him his fifth career multi-point game at the NHL level, and was a team-best +2.
– Forwards Arthur Kaliyev and Adrian Kempe each scored their first goals of the season this evening.
– Defenseman Drew Doughty led the Kings in time-on-ice at 25:03, while Phillip Danault led the forwards at 19:49.
– Defenseman Matt Roy had a team-leading and career-high seven hits in the defeat.

The Kings are scheduled to return to the ice tomorrow morning at 11 AM for practice at Toyota Sports Performance Center.