FINAL – Kings 5, Ducks 2 – Byfield, Fiala, McLellan

The LA Kings improved to 9-0-0 on the road this season, following a 5-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks on Friday afternoon at Honda Center.

The Kings jumped out to a two-goal advantage midway through the first period, via a pair of power-play goals.

First, just past the halfway mark of the opening period, forward Kevin Fiala scored from a sharp angle to open the scoring. With the Kings on the man advantage, the puck came to Fiala just above the goal line and the Swiss winger snapped his shot home from a sharp angle to put the visitors ahead. Forward Arthur Kaliyev made it 2-0 just over two minutes later, as his shot from the right-hand circle evaded traffic in front and went in for his fourth goal of the season.

Just over a minute into the second period, the Kings made it 3-0 through forward Quinton Byfield. Byfield, stationed in front of the net, got a deflection on a point shot from defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, tipping the puck past Anaheim netminder John Gibson and in for his fourth goal of the season and a three-goal advantage.

Fiala extended the lead to four goals, less than two minutes after Byfield’s goal, as he buried for the second time this afternoon. Fiala and forward Phillip Danault executed a slick exchange in the right-hand circle, with Fiala collecting, moving through the slot and scoring on his forehand for a superb individual effort to extend the lead to 4-0. Forward Trevor Moore picked up the secondary assist for his second point of the game.

Just past the midway point of the game, Anaheim defenseman Radko Gudas got the Ducks on the board. Firing from the right point, Gudas let off a hard, low shot that may have deflected on its way past Kings netminder Cam Talbot, with the goal going to Gudas for his fourth of the season and a 4-1 scoreline.

Just over three minutes into the third period, the Kings restored their four-goal advantage through forward Anze Kopitar. As the Kings gained the offensive blue line with possession, Kopitar opened up in the right-hand circle and one-timed a feed from forward Adrian Kempe, past Gibson, for his team-leading tenth goal of the season.

Anaheim pulled back a power-play goal to cut its deficit to 5-2, just past the midway point of the third period. Ducks forward Mason McTavish worked his way into the slot, kept the puck on his stick and slid it to forward Alex Killorn at the back post, where the winger buried his first goal as a Duck to pull his team back within three goals.

Hear from Byfield, Fiala and Head Coach Todd McLellan following today’s victory.

Quinton Byfield

QB spoke to the media after the W 🔊@LAKings | #GoKingsGo | #FreewayFaceoff pic.twitter.com/3N0PPEX8kV

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) November 24, 2023

Kevin Fiala
On what’s gone well for him over the last stretch of games
Just going back to basics, just work hard and shoot the puck more, go to the net more, all of those small details, just doing them more. Also, just driving with the puck, wanting the puck more, all of that stuff, I think I’ve done a better job of lately. It’s nice.

On his line with Danault and Moore and what’s clicking so well right now
Obviously, it’s clicking a lot. We, all three, have the same type of vision, all three guys are really fast, I feel. Going to the net, we cycle the puck, we grind them down and also defensively, I think we do a good job, so it’s been good.

On securing the victory today, on the road
From the start, I feel like it was a great game, back and forth, back and forth, the fans were into it, it was very fun to play in. A lot of fights also and I feel like we did a great job of just staying above them, didn’t give them so many chances. Talbot was there when we needed him and overall, I think it was a good team win.

On the extra work he’s put in with his skills coach to improve and work on his game
I’ve been working with him for over 10 years and in that time, he knows me in and out, but just on the ice, what I do well, and personally, he’s helped me off the ice a lot. On the ice, we did some extra work. After some practices, we came back to the rink and went on the ice for another hour and just worked on some things that I need to do better and what my strengths are, I need to kind of know what it is again, just back to basics kind of. He means a lot to me. He did a great job for like 10 years, and he’s been even better and better. I’m very grateful.

Todd McLellan
On today’s win over Anaheim
We got off to a good start, we capitalized on the first two power plays. We knew they had a tendency to take some penalties and we wanted to be prepared to do that, and that was, I think, powerful for our group to get rolling here. Then Q’s goal, I think was a real big thing for us as well, because it was a simple goal, nothing fancy about it. We started to check after that, maybe checked too much, we didn’t get as much of a push up ice as we maybe needed, but we’re learning as we go and another good night from Talbs.

On if he saw things practiced on the power play show up in today’s game
There were some, yeah, but you can never replicate the same thing as game intensity. In practice, guys aren’t in shooting lanes and we don’t want them to be. You don’t have any risk of the puck going the other way if something goes wrong, but the concepts and some of the principles that we addressed, you could spot them in the game.

On Adrian Kempe’s integration of physical play into his game
It’s been there and you can be physical in a lot of different ways. We think of physicality as running over somebody in the corner, but there’s battles at nets, faceoffs , races to loose pucks, blocked shots, physicality comes in so many different forms. Adrian has always had that, he just consistently uses it now and he’s rewarded, quite often offensively, or at least his linemates are because of it.

On what he’s seen in Kevin Fiala’s game over the last two weeks
He’s got a lot of energy in his game right now. When that happens, he’s got the puck on his tape, he’s making plays, he looks really confident. Despite having a pretty good team record, sometimes lines go stale, it doesn’t work for a while and we needed to shake things up. I think he’s real excited of playing with the two players that he’s with, not that he wasn’t before, they had plenty of chances, it just wasn’t clicking. But, I see an energized number 22 right now, he’s having a lot of fun.

On if the team has a mentality on the road of trying to get ahead early
I would say, I’m going to answer that question, absolutely, but we had that mindset three years ago too, everybody wants to do that. It doesn’t matter what team you’re on, the quicker you can establish your game on the road and especially with a rivalry-type team, you want to get it done. We’re having a little more success with it this year. I said the other day, we’re a mature team, not always in age, but mature being around each other and playing with each other, understanding how we want to play. We work hard to get the lead and then we do our thing.

Notes –
– Kevin Fiala (2-0=2) scored his fifth and sixth goals of the season, extending his goal and point streak (5-2=7) against Anaheim to four games. It marked Fiala’s first multi-goal outing of the 2023-24 campaign.
– Arthur Kaliyev (1-0=1) recorded his third power-play goal of the season, tying him with Anze Kopitar (3) for the most power-play goals this season.
– Quinton Byfield (1-0=1) scored his fourth goal of the year.
Anze Kopitar (1-1=2) tallied his 287th career multi-point outing, a performance that included his 757th career assist which ties Marcel Dionne (757) for the most assists in franchise history.
– With his two points this afternoon, Kopitar extended his point streak (4-10=14) vs. Anaheim to eight games. He is the first player in league history to record three different point streaks of at least eight games in their career against Anaheim (6-9=15 in 11GP from Apr. 12, 2014 – Apr. 7, 2016 and 3-9=12 in 9GP from Nov. 17, 2011 to Apr. 13, 2013).
– Adrian Kempe (0-2=2) registered his team-leading seventh multi-point game of the season and his second in as many games. With his two helpers, Kempe extended his point streak vs. Anaheim to nine games (8-7=15). In doing so, Kempe is the fifth different skater in franchise history to establish a point streak of at least nine games against the Ducks: Kopitar (2x), L’ubomir Visnovsky, Mike Richards and Michael Cammalleri.
– Trevor Moore (0-2=2) notched his fourth multi-point game and second in three games (1-1=2 on Nov. 18 vs. STL).
– Drew Doughty (0-2=2) collected his 121st career multi-point game, surpassing Jim Fox (120) for the 10th-most multi-point games in Kings history.
– Cam Talbot turned aside 29 of 31 shots to earn his 10th victory of the season in his 14th game with the Kings and improved his record to 10-3-1. Talbot is the third netminder in Kings history to reach the 10-win mark within their first 14 games with the franchise: Pheonix Copley (12-2-0 in 14GP) and Daniel Berthiaume (10-3-0 in 14GP).
– The Kings won their ninth road game of the season, improving their road record to 9-0-0 on the year. With their victory, the Kings are just the third team in NHL history to win each of their first nine road games to start a season: 2006-07 Buffalo Sabres (10 GP), and 2009-10 New Jersey Devils (9 GP).
– Per NHL PR, Todd McLellan joined Lindy Ruff as the second head coach in NHL history to record a road win streak of at least nine games with multiple franchises (also 9 GP w/ SJS in 2009-10). Ruff accomplished the feat with the Sabres in 2006-07 (10 GP) and 2005-06 (9 GP) as well as the Devils in 2022-23 (11).

The Kings are not schedule to hold a morning skate tomorrow and will return to action tomorrow afternoon at 1 PM against the Montreal Canadiens.

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