PRESEASON FINAL – Kings 3, Vegas 2 – Jeannot, Foegele, Hiller

The LA Kings picked up their first victory over the preseason with a 3-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday evening at T-Mobile Arena.

The Kings jumped out to a 2-0 advantage late in the first period, as they scored two goals in a span of just 28 seconds to open up a lead.

First, skating on the power play, forward Alex Laferriere opened his account for the preseason with the game’s first goal. Working in from the top of the left-hand circle, forward Kevin Fiala got the puck to the front of the net, where forward Alex Turcotte won a battle in front and fed Laferriere, who buried at the back post for a 1-0 lead.

Less than 30 seconds later, forward Tanner Jeannot made it 2-0 with his first goal in a Kings sweater. Skating in transition, forward Warren Foegele gained the offensive blueline and dropped a puck to Jeannot off the rush. Jeannot collected in the right-hand circle and snapped a shot clean past Vegas netminder Ilya Samsonov for his first of the preseason and a two-goal lead heading into the first intermission.

Early in the second period, the Golden Knights pulled a goal back in transition, courtesy of defenseman Noah Hanifin. The Kings got caught with four players below the puck in the offensive zone and Vegas capitalized, with forward Tanner Laczynski finding the open man, Hanifin, who fired home his team’s first goal, cutting the score to 2-1.

The Kings got that goal back, however, taking a two-goal lead into the second intermission. Fiala started his second scoring play of the evening as he made a nifty move in the slot to create space for himself, with forward Warren Foegele eventually finishing the play from in tight, just outside the crease, for his first goal of the preseason and a 3-1 advantage. Fiala and Foegele each collected their second points of the game, while forward Quinton Byfield also recorded an assist on the play.

The Kings made a scheduled goaltending change after 40 minutes, with Carter George entering in place of Darcy Kuemper. Kuemper finished his night with 11 saves on 12 shots in his first action of the preseason.

Vegas pulled back to within a goal just over five minutes into the third period. Laferriere’s cross-ice pass was intercepted in the defensive zone by Laczynski, who beat the new goaltender, George, with a shot from the slot to bring the score to make it a one-goal game. George and the Kings held on for the 3-2 victory from that point forward.

During the opening period, Kings defenseman Drew Doughty left the game with a lower-body injury and did not return. Per Head Coach Jim Hiller after the game, there was no update on Doughty’s status beyond the lower-body injury. The plan is to return to Los Angeles and “get a closer look at it” with the Kings medical team. Until that time, Hiller said nothing is certain on Doughty’s status.

Hear from Jeannot, Foegele and Hiller following tonight’s game.

Warren Foegele

Tanner Jeannot
On his impressions from his first preseason game with the Kings
Yeah, I thought we came out pretty good. Everyone’s trying to learn the new system and just execute on that. So it’s a lot of talk, a lot of building chemistry with lines, and I think the main thing is everyone just works hard. I thought everyone did a really good job of that tonight and we came out with a good result.

On the difficulties of playing after seeing a player like Drew Doughty go down the way he did
It’s something you never want to see, you know, we definitely felt it on the bench. Obviously, he’s a leader on this team, he’s been around forever, it just really sucks. I thought the guys just put that behind us for just a second and got the game done and did the job. Now we can see how Dewey’s doing and help him through, I don’t know what’s going on yet, but just helping him through it.

On continuing to build chemistry with Phillip Danault and Trevor Moore, and his takeaways from Game 1 together
I’m really excited to play with those two. Obviously, they’ve played together for a long time, they’ve got a lot of chemistry built up, so I’m just trying to talk as much as I can, tell them my tendencies, trying to figure out theirs and just talk it through so we can do the best we can and just bring my skillset to to what they’re doing. It’s a good stepping stone tonight, and just want to keep building on it.

On the interchangability between he and Moore with side of the ice
I think so, yeah, both of us are pretty comfortable on either side, so it’s just whatever we want to do, I guess, whatever we’re feeling, and we’ve just got to talk it out. So yeah, it’s pretty easy.

On his goal tonight and scoring from distance with his shot
Most of my goals don’t come from that far away from the net. I’m usually just banging in the rebound or something like that, but no it was a hard playing the d-zone, we got it out and got an odd-man rush there. Foegs made a good play to drop it back to me and I just kind of use the D as a screen to make the shot and it went in for me.

Jim Hiller
On if there is any further update on Drew Doughty’s status
No more than you already know. We’ll get back home, we’ll get a closer look at it then. Until we get a closer look at it, with our guys, we’re not going to know for sure.

On the challenges of a team getting back into a game after seeing Doughty go down
Nobody feels good about that, you know, you see a guy like that, everybody knows Drew’s a warrior, he’s not going to leave the ice unless he’s hurting, for sure. It’s disappointing, because you don’t know, right? It’s the unknown. You’ve got to get out there and get playing, but I think it took some life out of us the second half of the game, there’s no question. In the meantime, I thought Spence and Burroughs, the two right D that were left, picked up some minutes and had pretty good games.

On his initial impressions of the Fiala/Byfield/Foegele line
I thought they started really good, that was the obvious, first period they were really good. Then with the power plays,. I thought we lost our flow a little bit in the second half of the game 5-on-5, so probably took them out of it, but that first period was what we expected from them.

On seeing individual mistakes on goals against and how he evaluates those in a preseason game
Yeah, we’re looking at our team game more than anything and so the individual mistakes are the individual mistakes at this point. We’ve got to make sure our team game is in place and then of course those guys know they just can’t do that, that’s hockey 101. For most part, our team game came off on a bad change, one time we had a bad read in the neutral zone in the second but I thought we did a pretty good job outside of that.

On the play of Carter George, coming into two games as a young goaltender
Both games really, the thing that sticks out at me is he looks really calm. He doesn’t waste a lot of movement and I thought it was great the way it finished for him. He had to hold the lead, boom there was some traffic there, he fought through the traffic, let it hit him. Just a really impressive performance by him in the second half, and really by Kuemps to start the game. He got the Kings jersey back on officially, it’s been a long time for him and he sure picked up where he left off with the Kings.

On Jordan Spence’s game and seeing him take a step this season
I think so. Spenny was a real offensive defenseman in the American League and we need him here to be a very solid defenseman. He’ll pick up points here and there, but we just need that defensive game, solid, predictable and I think that’s the thing that he needs to work on. Tonight, I thought he did a pretty good job with that.