FINAL – Kings 5, Senators 2 – Copley, Arvidsson, McLellan

The LA Kings kicked off a six-game roadtrip with a 5-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday evening from Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, Ontario.

The Kings got a pair of goals from Viktor Arvidsson, a team-best three assists from Anze Kopitar and 29 saves from goaltender Pheonix Copley, who earned his first victory as a member of the LA Kings this evening.

The Kings opened up an early two-goal advantage within the first 2:15 of game play, forcing Ottawa into an early timeout.

First, defenseman Matt Roy got the visitors on the board just 95 seconds into the game. After a strong shift in the offensive zone by the top line, Roy crashed in from the right point and got on the end of a rebound for his fourth goal of the season. Less than a minute later, defenseman Mikey Anderson buried a one-timer from the right-hand circle, off a pass from forward Blake Lizotte, to push the LA advantage to two goals in short supply.

Ottawa pulled a goal back on the power play, however, to move within 2-1. After the Kings were unable to clear the zone on multiple occasions, the Senators converted in front, as forward Drake Batherson buried a rebound past Kings netminder Pheonix Copley for his sixth goal of the season.

Forward Viktor Arvidsson extended the lead to 4-1 at the intermission, as he scored twice in less than three minutes. Arvidsson scored first on the power play, as he cashed in a pass from Trevor Moore for his sixth goal of the season. He struck again at even strength as the trailer on the play off the bench, as he took a Kevin Fiala feed and buried his shot on the glove side for a multi-goal game and a three-goal advantage for the Kings.

In what was generally an uneventful second period, the Kings scored the only goal of the 20-minute segment through Fiala, who made it a multi-point night himself with a power-play goal. In the left-hand circle, Fiala changed the angle of his release and fired past Ottawa netminder Cam Talbot for his ninth goal and team-leading 30th point of the season.

The Senators converted on the power play for the second time on the evening midway through the third period to move within three goals. Stationed at the center point, defenseman Thomas Chabot hit a one timer through traffic and past Copley for his fifth goal of the season, the final goal of the evening.

Hear from Copley, Arvidsson and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s win.

Pheonix Copley

Copley on his lateral ability on his third period save, his first win as an LA King, and the offense picking him up early👏@LAKings | #GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/xj1YCQPPIB

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) December 7, 2022

Viktor Arvidsson
On the 60-minute effort from the Kings tonight
I think we played fast and we executed. They did too, but we made better decisions with the puck and we were able to be effective.

On the 60-minute effort from the Kings tonight
[On The First] Durzi made a great play on the blueline to Moore, he got it over to me and it was nice to see it go in. [On The Second] I came off the bench and kind of saw the play develop. Kevin made a great play on the wall and saw me coming in.

On the 60-minute effort from the Kings tonight
Yeah, for sure. We have great players on our team and we just have to be committed to playing both ways. I think we were tonight.

Todd McLellan
On the full-team performance in tonight’s win
I thought it was a complete game by everybody. We didn’t have to rely on one or two people. Starting with the goaltender, I thought he played really well, gave us some confidence, made a big save in the third period that could have been a game changer. Throughout the lineup, I thought we had real good effort, we executed some of the things that we wanted and we learned some lessons. Last time we played them, they did some things that we needed to counter with and the guys applied them. It was a good night for us.

On scoring five goals tonight without sacrificing defensively, at 5-on-5
You know, with that type of question, I’d say why do we have to ask it, and I know why you have to ask it, but we should be able to do that on a nightly basis. It’s in the DNA of our team and it’s a lot of fun to score goals and we’ve scored a lot of goals this year, we want to keep that up, but it should never be at the expense of our own end and our goaltenders. I believe that we can get better in that area and for the most part tonight, it was there.

On Pheonix Copley playing within himself tonight to help the team
I thought he did, yeah. He was calm, you could tell he played in the league before. Calm, pretty collected, took a few shots for him to feel comfortable. Remember, he’s got a lot of new teammates, he hasn’t played with a lot of these guys, even throughout training camp it happened fast for him. I thought, for as good as he played, the guys wanted to play well for him and we needed that in our locker room.

On getting two goals early from defensemen to help set the tone of the game
I’m not sure if the positional scorers change it, but the fact that we were able to start real quick [was good]. If you remember a week ago or 10 days ago in LA they took it to us pretty good first period. We weren’t real happy with that, so the fact that we were able to come out and put our foot on the gas was a good thing for our team.

Notes –
– Viktor Arvidsson recorded his fifth multi-point game of the season. Arvidsson’s two goals put him over the 20-point plateau for seventh consecutive season.
– With a pair of assists, defenseman Sean Durzi extended his assist and point streaks to a career-long six games. Durzi is the fifth defenseman in Kings history to record an assist streak of six games or longer and he has nine points (1-8-9) in total during his current run.
– Anze Kopitar collected his third multi-point effort in his last four games and his fifth multi-assist game of the season. It also marked Kopitar’s 24th career game with three or more assists, the fourth-most in team history, and his 132nd career multi-assist game, third most in team history.
– Kevin Fiala increased his team-leading point total to 30 (9-21-30), becoming the first Kings player to reach 30 points this season. Per NHL PR, Fiala became the fifth Los Angeles player in the past 20 years to reach the mark in 28 games or fewer. Fiala also has eight points in his last four games (2-6-8).
– Defensemen Matt Roy and Mikey Anderson each scored in tonight’s win, with both players matching a previous career high in goals on the season.
– In his first game back after he was activated from LTIR, forward Alex Iafallo collected an assist. Iafallo has at least a point in each of the five games he’s played in this season.
– Pheonix Copley stopped 31 of 33 shots in his LA Kings debut, earning his 17th career NHL victory and his first in a Kings jersey.
– Todd McLellan won his 542nd career game as an NHL head coach to tie Billy Reay for the 24th-most wins by a head coach in league history. It was also his 108th victory behind the LA Kings bench, taking sole possession of the seventh place for the most wins by a head coach in franchise history.
– Tonight marked Rob Blake’s 400th game as the team’s General Manager.

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at noon Eastern, 9 AM Pacific in Toronto.