PRESEASON FINAL – Kings 3, Coyotes 5 – Moore, Dubois, McLellan

The LA Kings dropped their first game of the 2023 preseason, the first game of the 2023 Global Series: Melbourne, by a 5-3 final score against the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, Australia.

After a first period that saw neither team get on the board, Arizona opened the scoring early in the second frame. Coyotes forward Clayton Keller carried the puck behind the goal line and banked a shot off the back of Kings netminder Pheonix Copley to put the de-facto home team ahead less than two minutes into the middle stanza.

The Coyotes added a power-play goal later in the second period to double their advantage. Skating 5-on-4, forward Matias Maccelli skated in from the left-hand circle and snapped his shot clean past Copley for a 2-0 advantage.

The Kings pulled a goal back less than a minute later, however, as forward Adrian Kempe opened his account for the preseason. Defenseman Jordan Spence picked off a pass in the neutral zone and advanced the puck into the offensive end with possession. Spence dropped to Kempe, who dragged onto his forehand and snapped a shot past Arizona netminder Connor Ingram and in for a 2-1 scoreline.

With two goals in 21 seconds, Arizona opened up a 4-1 lead midway through the second period. First, forward Nick Bjugstad took advantage of a failed effort to clear the defensive zone, as he fed teammate Lawson Crouse for a one-timer goal from the slot. Seconds later, forward Logan Cooley scored his first career professional goal with a highlight-reel individual effort, making it 4-1 in the process.

It was the Kings that stormed back to close out the middle stanza, however, burying twice to pull themselves back to within a single goal. First, on the power play, forward Viktor Arvidsson redirected a point shot from forward Kevin Fiala to make it 4-2. Arvidsson was then the facilitator, as he fed forward Trevor Moore across the ice and the Kings winger kept it himself, snapping the shot past Ingram on the blocker side.

The Kings had their looks in the third period but were unable to find the game-tying goal. Arizona forward Barrett Hayton iced the game late with an empty-net goal, bringing us to the 5-3 final score.

Hear from Moore, forward Pierre-Luc Dubois and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Trevor Moore
On the atmosphere from the game here today
The energy was unbelievable. We saw at the open practice how a lot of people here care about hockey and want to want to learn about it and experience it. You look up there and you see all the different jerseys, you might be able to pick out every single team in the league. There’s a lot of hockey fans here which is really cool.

On coming into today with a fresh start off an injury-filled 2022-23 season
Yeah, for sure. I think I had a good summer, I felt good all summer, felt good in camp. I’m just hoping to roll it over, put last year behind me and just keep it going.

On his takeaways from the team’s preseason debut
I thought that we did a lot of good things, the team things that we pride ourselves on. Just little lapses here and there that we don’t want to have happen ever, but if you’re going to do it preseason is the time to do it. So, we’re going to learn from it, watch the video and just clean it up.

Pierre-Luc Dubois
On experiencing a cool atmosphere here in Australia
It was cool. The [fans] were great tonight, you got to see their excitement from the puck drop, the first couple of hits they were excited. It’s not every day that they get to see NHL teams, it’s the first time we’re here and with the time changes, it could be tough, but I really hope they enjoyed it tonight.

On his takeaways from tonight’s game
I think we did a lot of good things, especially early on. We really dominated play, I thought, in the first period and then we made a few mistakes and they’re a talented team so it was in the back of our net, but there’s a lot of good things to build on.

On his first game skating alongside Kevin Fiala and Arthur Kaliyev
They’re two skilled players, Arty’s got a really good shot, Kevin is extremely talented out there making plays happen when there’s not much. I’m excited to build on that chemistry.

Todd McLellan
On experiencing the energy and atmosphere of Australian hockey fans tonight
For me, it started yesterday. After we practiced, I walked around and I ended up walking through the festival that the NHL put on. To see the number of people that were wearing jerseys and the number of teams that were represented, probably can see every one of the 32 jerseys and I thought that was really good. I thought that the fans were outstanding it was a real good experience and I’m glad we got to go through it.

On his thoughts on tonight’s performance, from a team perspective
I thought team-wise we played a pretty good game. I really liked the way we started. End of the first, start of the second it fell off for us and picked up for them, so there’s a little bit of a lesson learned there but when we look at it overall, I think some individual mistakes or errors cost us at certain points in the game. From a team perspective, we did some of the things we wanted to do.

On seeing Trevor Moore look a lot like Trevor Moore on the ice tonight
Those exact words were just said in the coaches room, Trevor looked like Trevor was before his injury last year. I think when you see Trevor escaping, and what I mean by that is tight turns, acceleration, beating guys from tight areas into open ice, he’s playing his game. We saw that tonight.