FINAL – Kings 2, Oilers 3 (SO) – Kempe, Danault, McLellan

The LA Kings picked up a point in their final game of 2023, but could not add the second, as they fell by a 3-2 final in the shootout against the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

The Kings jumped out to an early lead with a power-play goal from forward Kevin Fiala, their first goal on the man advantage since the holiday break. Forward Adrian Kempe entered the offensive zone with speed, drove down the left wing and centered the puck to Fiala, who one-timed it past Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner for his eighth goal of the season and a 1-0 lead.

With fewer than two minutes remaining in the opening period, Kempe doubled his team’s advantage with a terrific solo effort. Taking a stretch pass from forward Anze Kopitar down the right wing, Kempe wired a shot from the right-hand circle, past Skinner on the glove side and in, for a multi-point night and his 12th goal of the season.

Just shy of six minutes into the middle stanza, Edmonton got on the board through Connor McDavid, who scored on the power play for his 13th goal of the season. Moving in from a sharp angle, McDavid snapped a shot off the side of Kings netminder Cam Talbot’s mask and in, getting the visitors on the board and cutting the LA advantage to a single goal.

Later in the second period, the Oilers tied the game with a 4-on-4 goal, this coming from forward Leon Draisaitl, to equalize the game at two. McDavid was once again the facilitator, as he slid a pass through traffic to Draisaitl in the low slot, where the German forward buried from close range to tie the score at 2-2 heading into the second intermission.

Neither team scored during either a well-contested third period or during the 3-on-3 overtime session. After both teams scored on their first two shot attempts during the shootout, Edmonton’s Derek Ryan scored the game-winning goal in round four to secure the second point.

Hear from Adrian Kempe, Phillip Danault and Head Coach Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.

Adrian Kempe

. @CarrlynBathe talks with Kempe following this tough loss against Edmonton👑@LAKings | #GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/G7Lgr4YRAD

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) December 31, 2023

Phillip Danault
On his assessment of tonight’s game
Yeah, we had a good start. I think, again, they got their momentum on the power play, as usual, but 5-on-5, I thought we had the best out of it. They just fuel it with the power play, so we’ve got to limit our penalties.

On what he liked most about the way the team played during the first period
In the first, we played our game, we played with pace, I think 5-on-5, we’re the better team and that’s how we can win that game. Like I said, we’ve got to limit those penalties and those two guys, they create something from nothing, they’re dangerous the whole time.

On the penalty-killing performance tonight against a strong PP unit
Yeah, we had some good kills there, it gave us a chance to get one point. That 3-on-5 was huge and it was definitely a big kill.

On a playoff-type atmosphere in tonight’s game
Yeah, actually it was fun to play that game. I’m looking forward to the next game. It was playoff-type.

Todd McLellan

Coach Todd McLellan sounds off on the final game of 2023@LAKings | #GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/ZGptu4NJbb

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) December 31, 2023

On his takeaways from tonight’s game
We did some good things, we did some things where we put ourselves in tough spots, the 4-on-4 goal, but that’s the type of game I think that we’ve come to expect from these two teams. Good teams, they’ve committed to playing D again and they really play it well, so they’re not going to give up much, we’re not giving up much. They scored on the power play, they scored 4-on-4 and they scored in the shootout. So, those are special situations, they beat us there, but for the most part, it was a hard fought game, I thought it was playoff-style, if you will. Not a lot of space, not a lot of room, you needed to take advantage of mistakes. We were able to do that, they were able to do it and at the end of the night, it came down to a shootout.

On the penalty-killing performance against a strong PP unit
It’s a tough task, regardless of how you play. They’ve been together for so long and they have an answer for everything. Connor’s goal, he tried it 30 seconds earlier and obviously they wanted to get to that, a hell of a shot, that’s why he’s who he is. At 5-on-3, normally that power play is picking it up, you’re going to center ice for a faceoff, so we did some good things there.

On improvements off the start tonight, as compared to recent games
I thought we had all four lines going in the first period and I thought we were skating. Second period starts and we’re about three and a half, four minutes in and we take a penalty. Now, we quit skating, we’re totally defensive, we’ve got some guys that are fatigued a little bit. We take another penalty, go to 5-on-3 and we couldn’t get ahead in the second period. We were ahead in the first and the third period was pretty even.

On Kevin Fiala’s power-play goal tonight and scoring one off the rush
Kempe created that with using his legs and he held on long enough until a seam opened up. That happens to penalty kills, you’re a player short, and Kev hit a shot that we’ve been waiting for for a while. So, that’s kind of how I’d summize that.

On the team’s stretch of 4-4-2 hockey over the last 10 games
It’s tight games, we’re playing against real good opponents, I don’t think – and I said this I don’t know what we were, 10 games ago maybe – we weren’t gonna play .800 hockey the whole year, it just never has happened. Other teams are adapting to us a little bit too, but I don’t think we’re playing poorly. I think we’re right there. I go back to the Vegas game, I didn’t think we played poor as a team, I think we made some individual mistakes, which are going to happen and we’re not scoring goals as easy as we did earlier in the year. That’s probably the biggest difference.

On playing in another tight game against Edmonton
There was one 5-on-5 goal scored, that was it, in the whole night. I think this is the 23rd time, or 24th time we’ve played them now in the last two and a bit years and almost all those games, the odd one gets away on somebody, but that’s the type of night you’re going to have. So, I’m not leaving or driving home shocked or surprised at how it went.

Notes –
– Adrian Kempe (1-1=1) recorded his 12th goal and 21st assist of the season as part of his team-leading 10th multi-point performance of the season. It is Kempe’s third straight season with at least 10 multi-point efforts.
– Kevin Fiala (1-0=1) scored his eighth goal of the season for his 31st point of the campaign (8-23=31). This is just the second time in Fiala’s career that he reached at least 31 points in his first 33 games to start a season, having previously recorded 34 points (9-25=34) in his first 33 GP in 2022-23.
– Anze Kopitar (0-1=1) collected his 20th assist of the season. Kopitar has now recorded 10 points (4-6=10) in his last nine games, and 15 points (4-11=15) in the Kings’ 13 games in the month of December, leading all Kings skaters on points for the month.
– Kopitar concluded the 2023 calendar year as the Kings team leader in points (32-47=79) for the 15th time in his career. The only players in NHL history to lead their team in points in as many calendar years are Wayne Gretzky (17), Gordie Howe (16) and Alex Ovechkin (15).
– Drew Doughty (0-1=1) tallied his 12th assist of the season for his 29th career assist against the Oilers, breaking a tie with Mark Giordano (28) for the second-most assists against Edmonton among active defensemen.
– Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) recorded his 16th assist of the season for his first career regular-season assist against the Oilers.

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