FINAL – Kings 6, Oilers 3 – Fiala, Doughty, McLellan

The LA Kings skated to a 6-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday evening at Crypto.com Arena, beginning a four-game homestand with a win.

Forwards Kevin Fiala and Adrian Kempe each scored two power-play goals, as a part of a four-point night for Fiala and a three-point night for Kempe. Forward Viktor Arvidsson (1-1-2) and defenseman Drew Doughty (0-2-2) each had multi-point nights, while goaltender Pheonix Copley made 28 saves to earn the win in net.

The Kings jumped out to a 2-0 lead courtesy of a pair of goals from Fiala.

First, with the Kings on the man advantage, Fiala one-timed a cross-ice feed from Kempe past Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner on the glove side for his fourth goal in four periods. The Swiss winger increased that total to five just under two minutes later, with his second power-play goal of the evening. Again coming down from the right side, Fiala drove the net and roofed a wrist shot past Skinner for his 15th goal of the season.

Edmonton pulled one back to bring the score to 2-1 at the first intermission. Immediately after a power play had expired, with the Kings getting the kill, the visitors capitalized on a double deflection. A shot from the point deflected off a Kings stick, then off the stick of Edmonton forward Kailer Yamamoto and in, Yamamoto’s fourth goal of the season.

For the second straight period, the Kings netted twice on the power play, this time to take a 4-1 lead as Kempe scored twice.

First, Fiala hit Kempe with a stretch pass through the neutral zone, with Kempe moving in alone on Skinner and burying through the five hole for his 16th goal of the season. The Swede struck again just past the midway point of the middle stanza, with an official review confirming a good goal for the Kings. Fiala returned the favor from the opening period, feeding Kempe for a cross-ice one-timer, which Kempe hammered into the glove of new Edmonton netminder Jack Campbell, though the save was made over the line for a goal, Kempe’s team-leading 17th of the season.

The Oilers again pushed back with a late goal, however, to move back to within 4-2 heading into the second intermission. Off a point shot that was blocked on its way to the net, the puck deflected directly to forward Ryan McLeod, who scored on the backhand for his fourth goal of the season.

The hosts collected a big insurance goal early in the third period, through forward Alex Iafallo, to extend his team’s lead to three goals. Arvidsson sent Iafallo in on a breakaway, with the New York native firing off of Campbell’s glove and in for his seventh goal of the season, with yet another primary helper for Arvidsson.

Forward Connor McDavid pulled a goal back for the Oilers midway through the third period, however, as he stripped a puck in the neutral zone, walked into the offensive end and snapped a shot glove side on Copley for his NHL-leading 35th goal of the season. The McDavid goal brought the visitors back to within two goals on the evening.

Arvidsson completed his own multi-point night, however, with the empty-net goal to seal the deal at 6-3.

Hear from Fiala, Doughty and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Kevin Fiala
On what’s gone so well for him over the last two games
I mean, I’m just trying to play hockey. I’ve had a lot of chances before and it’s not like I didn’t play good before, the last two games especially they’ve just gone in. It’s really nice to see that.

On if there was any added intensity in tonight’s game
I think it was like a playoff game. A lot of emotion, physical, a lot of penalties and the special teams I feel like won the game for us. I’m very proud of the team overall.

On getting the job done on special teams tonight
Yeah, for sure. Especially against them, I think they’re first in the league on the power play, so very well done from our PK guys, staying with it and doing the job.

On if he feels like the playoff push has begun for the Kings
I mean, playoff push or no playoff push, we want to get better every day no matter where we are. Right now, we’re pretty good, we’ve played pretty good, we’re climbing the ladder in the standings, so it’s kind of a bonus. For sure, we’re in a playoff push.

Drew Doughty
On the evolution of the team’s penalty kill and the performance tonight
We’re just doing all the little things right. PK is a lot about will, and it’s not that we weren’t using it at the beginning, we were trying our hardest, but I think we have more of a willingness to block shots, battle harder for loose pucks to get them 200 feet. I don’t think we’ve changed too much, just a little more aggressive at times when we need to be and guys are just paying the price, that’s the difference.

On what he feels the Kings did well in playing against McDavid and Draisaitl tonight
It’s a whole unit job, all five of us on the ice and obviously the goalie too, but through the neutral zone, trying to slow them down as much as we can and then in the d-zone, I’m basically just following them around if I can, when I’m on the ice. It’s unfortunate [McDavid] got that goal, I wish I got a stick on it, but he’s a good player, he’s going to get his chances. Really, I think we did as good a job as we could do.

On the importance of games right now as the Kings push towards the postseason
We knew how important this stretch was, we definitely saw that we had this stretch against Boston, Dallas, Edmonton, Vegas, a lot of good teams, we knew how important it was. We did give up a couple of games to some teams lower in the conferences, but we stepped up against these big teams. This is, I wouldn’t say fully say feeling like playoff hockey, but the urgency is there and the team game is there, players are stepping up to the plate. I think everyone is playing well over this stretch, that’s the main thing is every single player in the locker room was playing really good hockey. That’s why we’re winning these games.

Todd McLellan
On what he felt was more impressive tonight, the PP or the PK
Well, one we wanted the other we didn’t, but we’ll take both. We obviously wanted to win the special teams battle and when you do against that team, we give ourselves a much better chance at success. If you would have told me at the beginning of the night it would have been 4-0 in our favor, I’m not sure I would have agreed with you, considering we had 12 minutes on the penalty kill. It’s not a recipe for success against that team. Rarely are they going to be shut out in that type of situation, so we were fortunate to come through it tonight but yet our penalty killers I thought did a really good job, from the goaltender on out. We’ll play them again and we’ve got to find a way not to tax the team as much. With all that being said, it was really strange, awkward, lack of rhythm in the game because of all the calls, for both teams. I’m not sure if it affected the quality of play or not, it felt scrambley at the end, but sometimes that happens.

On if he felt the Kings were able to beat Edmonton at their own game tonight
I don’t know if we beat them at their own game, we have a pretty good game too. Our power play has improved immensely from where it was. We have two units that are dangerous on any given night and one of them seems to be clicking for different reasons and tonight it was Kopis unit. That’s a good sign for us, leave Edmonton out of it, it’s a really good sign for us. Again, the penalty kill part of it, we’ve worked hard on our penalty kill lately. Number still isn’t great, but I think it’s improving and it showed tonight.

On where he feels the penalty-kill unit has improved the most as of late
Two things – I think there’s pressure and predictability. We lacked a little bit of both of those earlier in the year. If we did pressure, it wasn’t predictable, we didn’t direct things into our favor and we fixed that a little bit. That would be the difference in my opinion.

On the Kings being willing to do the necessary things to get victories
There are good teams that never go anywhere because they don’t quite get everybody willing to do things that they don’t want to do. Sometimes average teams go a little bit further along because they do get players to do things they don’t want to do. That could be giving up ice time, that could be blocking a shot, that could be a scrap, a fight, taking care of a teammate, sacrificing offense to check at a certain time, game management. All those things that you throw in a bucket and you just take for granted, players don’t always want to do that. They want to go bardown and make sweet plays, all the adjectives that they use, but sometimes just getting them to do the things they don’t want to do can point you in the right direction at least

On Kevin Fiala’s game-breaking ability
We’ve been poking Kevin a little bit about some defensive responsibilities and put together some video for him after the the Vegas game and the number of defensive plays that he made that led to offense, to some of his goals, it was pretty impressive. Tonight was different, because he scored on the power play, but he’s getting very committed in that area and he fits the team really well that way. He’s playing to win. I thought at the beginning of the year, our whole team played to score, now we’re playing to win and we’re finally getting it. That doesn’t mean it just stays with you, it can leave quite quickly.

Notes –
– The Kings scored four power-play goals in a single game for the first time since April 5, 2012. The Kings also had two players score two power-play goals in a game for the first time in franchise history.
– Anze Kopitar recorded his 1,100th career NHL point and 600th career home point with his assist on Kevin Fiala’s first goal of the night. He joins Marcel Dionne and Luc Robitaille as the only skaters in franchise history to hit the 1,100-point mark.
– Only four other active skaters have reached both marks: Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Patrick Kane and Evgeni Malkin.
– Kevin Fiala (2-2-4) registered his fifth career 4+ point game and second with the Kings (0-4-4 on Nov. 29 vs. SEA). Fiala becomes the first Kings skater to eclipse the 30-assist mark this year. He now has 10 points (5-5-10) in his last five games.
– Fiala’s four points all came on the power-play, making him the sixth different Kings skater to record four or more power-play points in a game and the first since Adam Deadmarsh (0-4-4) on Feb. 8, 2002.
– Adrian Kempe (2-1-3) notched his third multi-goal and second three-point game of the campaign. Kempe’s 17 goals lead all Kings skaters.
– Viktor Arvidsson (1-1-2) earned his eighth multi-point effort of the season and scored a goal for a second consecutive game.
– Drew Doughty (0-2-2) collected his 21st and 22nd assists on the year. Doughty has 16 points (3-13-16) in his last 12 games against the Oilers, the most versus Edmonton among defensemen during that time.

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow morning at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center in El Segundo.