FINAL – Kings 6, Coyotes 3 – Copley, Lizotte, McLellan

The LA Kings earned their first home victory of the season as they skated to a 6-3 victory over the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Less than three minutes into the game, Arizona scored the game’s first goal, through forward Jack McBain. Forward Travis Boyd found a pocket of space in the slot and though his shot was turned aside by goaltender Pheonix Copley, the rebound fell to McBain, who slotted home from close range for his first goal of the season.

The Kings responded on the power play, however, just over five minutes later to knot the score at one. Moving in down the left-hand wall, forward Kevin Fiala found a seam through the Arizona penalty killers and hit forward Anze Kopitar at the back post for a slam-dunk goal. Kopitar’s goal was his third of the season, with Fiala picking up his team-leading eighth point with the primary assist.

With two goals in just over two minutes, the Kings took a 3-1 advantage into the first intermission.

Forward Trevor Lewis scored his first goal back with the organization, just past the halfway mark of the opening period, to put the hosts on top for the first time in the game. Forward Trevor Moore made it 3-1 just over two minutes later, as he buried a feed from linemate Phillip Danault for his team-leading fifth goal of the season. Moore’s goal ended goaltender Connor Ingram’s night, as he was replaced by Karol Vejmelka the rest of the way home.

The teams traded goals throughout the second period, with Arizona striking first. Entering the zone down the left wing, forward Lawson Crouse saw his shot turned aside by the left pad of Copley, but forward Nick Bjugstad crashed onto the rebound and swatted the puck home on the backhand to pull the visitors within 3-2.

Just over a minute later, the Kings restored their two-goal advantage through forward Blake Lizotte. Lewis got in behind the net on the forecheck, forcing a pass up the boards that defenseman Drew Doughty intercepted. Doughty then fed Lizotte on the slot, where the centerman shot past Vejmelka for the goal, his second of the season.

Late in the second period, on the man advantage, Arizona pulled back to within a goal once again. Off a tic-tac-toe passing sequence, forward Logan Cooley fed forward Clayton Keller, with the latter burying the one-timer from the right-hand circle for his fourth goal of the season and a 4-3 scoreline after 40 minutes.

Early in the third period, the Kings once again restored their two-goal advantage, this time through Fiala, who picked up his second point of the game. Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov fired a shot from the left point that trickled through the legs of Vejmelka and into the crease, where Fiala was able to knock it in for his first goal of the season and a 5-3 lead.

Late in the game, forward Adrian Kempe picked up his second goal of the season as he found the empty net to seal the game.

Hear from Copley, Lizotte and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Pheonix Copley

Blake Lizotte
On the team’s mentality in responding after the early goal against
I think we just scored two quick goals and the third later on, I thought there was no panic on our bench, it was like okay, we’ve been here before. We don’t like giving up the first goal, which we’ve done in I think five of our six games, we wish we’d have a better start mostly, but our team is resilient and I think there’s just no panic. I think that’s the sign of a good team.

On his goal tonight and if it embodied the identity of his line
I think you like any goal you score, but yeah, I think that was kind of the identity of our line. I think tonight, the majority of the game was how we were supposed to play. Hard, on the forecheck and create chances. Special teams, sometimes the fourth line can take over the game and guys like Carl, it’s tough to get on in the third period per se, but he’s got a great attitude and I think it’s just what our line’s here for, bring energy and chipping on offense when we can.

On his line getting two goals tonight to help power the offense
Everyone wants to make a difference in the game and when you can do it on the scoresheet, that’s the best feeling ever. We take a lot of pride in little things, but it is nice to get rewarded on the scoresheet.

On a desire to complement the team’s offensive ability with cleaner play defensively
I think through the first five games, you look back at our goals against average, it’s pretty high compared to teams in past couple years going deep in the playoffs, like Boston and Colorado. I think that scenario we need to sure up as we go along here but for the most part, we’re happy with where our team’s at six games in.

Todd McLellan
On his overall thoughts from tonight’s win
Well, we got a win on home ice. Our penalty kill performed fairly well, we gave one up against a real good power play and we knew that that was part of their bread and butter. I thought we had a slow start and our goaltender played extremely well early in the game. Then, in those specialty situations, our power play got one. When you do make mistakes, you rely on good goaltending and we got that today.

On getting that type of production and play from his fourth line
Significant impact. Their ability to, one, start to penalty kill each and every time. Grunny’s got three goals already. They are very trusting line. I know that three or four years ago, there’s a large group that wanted trusting players here. Well there’s three of them on that line right now that get the job done and it’s nice to have that, it’s nice to be able to roll lines. What it does is it affects some other guys that are used to playing a little bit more and if we’re able to continue playing the way we are, we all have to accept that it’s probably going to be a little bit less and that’s just the way it is. We’re fortunate to have Lizzo’s line playing as well as they are right now.

On seeing more of a shooting mentality from forward Kevin Fiala tonight
He’s so good visually with all his passes and stuff but he has a tremendous shot. His goal was the shortest shot he’ll probably take all year, it was what, two inches, but you’ve got to go get those sometimes too in those areas, you can always shoot from 20 feet out. He got his nose dirty in and around the net, he had a shooting mentality, which was a good thing for us and good thing for him. I’m sure he’ll feel better now that he’s you know off that 0-for mound.

On how he felt the group was able to shut down the game in the third period
It was a fairly even game all night. I thought we made some mistakes in the third that our goaltender had to cover up, that’s perhaps what we’re talking about earlier. We gave them opportunities off of our power play, not shorthanded chances, but we put them on the power play. A couple of high sticking calls, deep into our power play, all of a sudden they’re going on it and we had to rely on the goaltender in that situation, and some good penalty killers, to get the job done.

On the back-and-forth nature of tonight’s game
I would say that we started slow and then we got ourselves into the game. Again, some of the goals that were scored, right off the faceoff, Bjugstad’s, we actually were in good coverage and all of a sudden there’s a 3-on-2 coming as us. The power-play goal they scored,real good movement by them, sometimes you just tip your hat and say you know what, you made good plays. The early one was one that stung a little bit and is preventable, but back and forth.

Notes –
– Blake Lizotte (1-1=2) tallied a goal and an assist for his first multi-point game of the season, and the tenth of his career. With two points tonight, Lizotte now sits five points shy of 100 in his career (32-62=95).
– Anze Kopitar (1-1=2) scored his third goal of the season as part of his 265th career multi-point outing, surpassing Wayne Gretzky (264) for the third-most multi-point performances in franchise history. He trails only Marcel Dionne (392) and Luc Robitaille (321).
– Kopitar skated in his 651st home game with the Kings, taking sole possession of most in franchise history and surpassing former teammate Dustin Brown (650). Kopitar now sits as the Kings all-time leader in games played (1,298), home games played (651) and road games played (647), having set all marks this season.
– Kevin Fiala (1-1=2) scored his first goal of the season and recorded an assist, extending his active point and assist streak to five games (1-8=9). It is the third time in Fiala’s career that he has recorded an assist streak of at least five games, and his first time doing so as a King.
– Adrian Kempe (1-1=2) collected his second multi-point game of the season (1-1=2 on oct. 23 at MIN). Only Toronto’s William Nylander (79G) has more goals among Swedish-born skaters since the 2021-22 season than Kempe’s 78.
– Trevor Lewis (1-0=1) scored his first goal of the season. It is his first Kings goal since March 11, 2020 in a 3-2 win against the Ottawa Senators.
– Trevor Moore (1-0=1) scored his team-leading fifth goal of the season. Moore has now scored five goals in his last five games. It is the first time in Moore’s career he has recorded five goals in a six-game span. Moore is just the third King since 2014-15 to score five goals in the team’s first six games of the season (Tanner Pearson, 5G in 2014-15 and Anze Kopitar, 6G in 2021-22).
– Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) recorded an assist in his 200th career NHL game to become the seventh blueliner in Kings history to record a point in their 200th career game and the first to do so since Matt Roy (0-1=1) on April 12, 2022 at Chicago.
– Drew Doughty (0-1=1) recorded his third point of the year with his helper on Blake Lizotte’s second period goal. It is the 622nd career point (122-480-622) of Doughty’s career, tying Guy Lapointe (171-451=622) for 22nd all-time amongst Canadian-born defensemen in league history. Doughty also sits four points behind John Carlson (484) for second all-time in points among defensemen from the 2008 NHL Draft.
– Phillip Danault (0-1=1), Andreas Englund (0-1=1), Vladislav Gavrikov (0-1=1) and Jordan Spence (0-1=1) each tallied assists.
– Pheonix Copley stopped 24 of 27 shots tonight to earn his 25th win with the Kings in his 39th game (25-6-4). In doing so, Copley required the fewest appearances to reach the 25-win mark by a Kings goaltender, surpassing Kelly Hrudey’s record (44 GP).

The Kings have a scheduled team off day tomorrow. The group will return to practice on Thursday at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.

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