FINAL – Kings 5, Panthers 4 – Moore, Vilardi, McLellan

The LA Kings began a four-game homestand with a victory by a 5-4 margin over the Florida Panthers on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Forward Gabe Vilardi scored the game-winning goal with just over three minutes left in the third period, while forwards Viktor Arvidsson and Trevor Moore each collected a goal and an assist and Anze Kopitar had a pair of assists. Goaltender Jonathan Quick made 34 saves to earn his fourth victory of the season.

The Panthers scored the lone goal of the first period, via forward Ryan Lomberg, to take a 1-0 lead through 20 minutes. After Rasmus Kupari lost possession along the boards, Lomberg moved in down the right wing and snapped his shot past Kings netminder Jonathan Quick on the blocker side to put the visitors ahead midway through the opening frame.

Midway through the second period, the teams combined to score three goals in 52 seconds as they score went from 1-0 Kings deficit to a 2-2 draw. The three goals were the fastest consecutively by both teams in the NHL so far this season.

First, the Kings tied that game at one through Kupari, who scored his first goal of the season from the slot, off of a spin-o-rama assist from Kevin Fiala, the perfect response to the opening goal against. Florida then regained the lead 18 seconds later, as a centering feed from Carter Verhaeghe deflected off of Mikey Anderson’s skate and in. The Kings completed the eventful stretch with another game-tying goal, this off the stick of Moore, who deflected a Arvidsson point shot to knot the score at two apiece.

With less than 30 seconds to play in the middle stanza, the Kings converted on the power play with a nice passing play off the rush. On a shortened man advantage, Moore sent an area pass to Kopitar, who fed forward Viktor Arvidsson at the back post for the go-ahead goal late in the second period. The play made multi-point nights for Arvidsson and Moore, as the Kings led 3-2 through 40 minutes.

The Panthers equalized just over 60 seconds into the third period, as forward Eetu Luostarinen tied the game at three. Forward Sam Reinhart weaved around the offensive zone and hit a trailing Luostarinen, who moved in alone down the left side and beat Quick to tie the game at three.

The Kings again pulled back ahead, however, as forward Blake Lizotte scored for the second straight game to make it 4-3. Defensemen Matt Roy sent a stretch pass off the boards to spring Lizotte on a breakaway down the right wing. After his first attempt was stopped by the right pad of goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, Lizotte stayed with the rebound and slotted it home for his fourth goal of the season.

The back-and-forth affair continued as Verhaeghe scored his second goal of the game to equalize at four. After the Kings were unable to clear their defensive zone on multiple occasions, a turnover up the middle gave Florida a couple of looks from just outside the crease, which Verhaeghe buried at the back post for his seventh marker of the season.

The game remained deadlocked at four late into the third period, before Vilardi put things away for good with just over three minutes remaining in regulation. Off of a won faceoff in the offensive zone, Vilardi found a pocket of space at the back post, collected an Alex Edler rebound off the end-wall and converted from a sharp angle to put the game away with his team-leading ninth goal of the season.

Hear from Vilardi, Moore and Todd McLellan following tonight’s win.

Trevor Moore
On the goal late in the second period and sacrificing the body to make a play
I thought Kopi had changed honestly, so when Vik made that play on the wall, I just peeked over and saw he was on the ice still. It just kind of set up nicely and a good play by Quickie too, obviously.

On his high-level wall play and his focus on it
I think picking up from other guys, I have tried to in the past. High-end guys like [Mitch] Marner, they try to look before they get the puck and get their head up right away. Obviously I’m not at that level but it helps to take a peek before you get the puck.

On his takeaways from tonight’s game
Ups and downs in that game, it was good offensively and Quickie was great, but there’s some stuff to button up defensively and we know that. We’re working on it and we’re getting better.

Gabe Vilardi
On the team’s character shown tonight in the victory
Yeah, it was a back-and-forth game. I don’t know how many times we had the lead, or they were up, but yeah, it was. It was a tightly contested game.

On what he saw on his goal
It was a tied up draw, I tied up my guy and Kopi ended up winning it. Eddy took a shot and it went wide and I kind of read that it was going wide. I got a lucky bounce, it came out just on the other side of the goal line. I knew that [Bobrovsky] was coming late to the post, so I just tried to beat him under the glove and it ended up going in.

On not having his best game tonight, but gaining confidence from being trusted late in the game
Yeah, for sure. Largely, two of those goals we were on the ice. The first one there, the Mikey Anderson own goal, that starts with me, I was the high guy and I didn’t do a good job, so that goal was largely on me. The other one, I felt like I dived in and Tkachuk made a nice play, but it is nice to help the team win offensively after that game.

Todd McLellan

On if he would classify tonight’s win as a character win
Yeah, I would. Lots of highs and lows throughout the night, changes of momentum, open and then tight checking it had a little bit of everything so, character, yeah.

On the power-play goal late in the second period
Well, that was the turning point in the game. We’re penalty killing, goaltender interference, takes them off a power play and puts us on a power play, only 25 seconds of it maybe and the power-play goal that we scored was on that play at the end of the period. Coming in, up by a goal, have a little momentum, I think that was a break that we’re obviously pleased with. The connection of Quickie moving it up and I think he had a sense of where the period was and that the power play was going to be short lived. He’s got pretty good hockey sense in there and credit to him to get that.

On Gabe Vilardi finding the game-winning goal despite not having his best night
He’s done a lot of good things for us, you know, he scored the winner tonight. You can’t play your best every night, it’s impossible. So what do you have in your “B” game and Gabe had a good enough “B” game to be effective tonight. He scored, we trusted him in the in the last few minutes of the game. He’s done a real good job this season.

On Matthew Tkachuk’a actions late in the game
That’s what he does. It makes him a good player, it makes him a villain. Do we like the poking in [Quick]’s facemask? Of course we don’t, but I don’t think it’s anything that we can deal with. Now other people have to look at it.

Notes –
– Forward Gabe Vilardi scored his team-leading ninth goal of the season, the sixth game-winning goal of his NHL career.
– Viktor Arvidsson collected his third goal of the season and also added an assist. Arvidsson now has five points (2-3-5) from his last five games.
– Trevor Moore also tallied a goal and an assist, as he registered his fourth multi-point game of the season. Moore now sits one point (38-62-99) shy of 100 for his NHL career.
– Anze Kopitar collected two assists for his third multi-assist game of the season and the 130th of his career. Kopitar is the second Kings player to reach double-digit assists this season, trailing only Kevin Fiala (11) for the team lead.
– Blake Lizotte scored his second goal in as many games, marking the second time he has scored in back-to-back games this season (Oct. 25 vs. TBL; Oct. 27 vs. WPG). Lizotte has four goals in total on the season.
– Rasmus Kupari (1-0-1) scored his first goal of the season, with Fiala collecting his team-leading 11th assist of the season with the primary helper.
– Fiala now has nine points (2-7-9) over his last six games played, with at least one point in five of those six games played.

The Kings have a scheduled off day tomorrow. The team will return to the ice for practice on Monday morning at 11 AM from Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.