FINAL – Kings 4, Jets 1 – Danault, Laferriere, Hiller

The LA Kings responded after Monday’s loss in San Jose with a convincing victory over the Winnipeg Jets by a 4-1 final score.

Inside the game’s first two minutes, the Kings opened the scoring through forward Anze Kopitar, who capitalized with the hosts on the power play. Off a won faceoff, the Kings worked the puck back to forward Adrian Kempe at the point. Kempe’s shot was deflected on the way to the net by Kopitar, past Winnipeg netminder Connor Hellebuyck and in for his seventh goal of the season and an early 1-0 advantage.

Midway through the second period, the duo of Alex Turcotte and Phillip Danault combined on a well-taken goal to double the Kings’ advantage. Turcotte dug the puck out of the corner and sent a no-look, backhanded pass to a charging Danault in front, where he deked and got a shot on net before burying his own rebound for his second goal of the season and a 2-0 lead.

Winnipeg answered with a power-play goal before the end of the second, bringing the game into the second intermission at 2-1 in favor of the Kings. Former Kings forward Gabriel Vilardi was the goalscorer for the visitors, as he took the puck to the front of the net, collected his own rebound and slotted home at the near post for his ninth goal of the season.

Early in the third period, the Kings regained their two-goal lead, as forward Kevin Fiala buried his eighth goal of the season. Off a successful zone entry from defenseman Brandt Clarke, the young blueliner fed Fiala, who feathered a shot from the outside, off the back of a Winnipeg defenseman in front and in for the 3-1 advantage.

Kempe added his second point of the game with the empty-net goal to seal the game with a 4-1 final.

Hear from Danault, forward Alex Laferriere and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s victory.

Phillip Danault

Alex Laferriere
On the win tonight and what he was happiest with from the team’s performance
I think our start, we wanted to come out pretty hard and obviously we didn’t like the way last game went, so I think it showed how resilient our group is and how we’re able to bounce back. I think just right from the start, we were taking it to them.

On the team’s ability to play directly in the offensive zone on each goal
Yeah, I mean you’re not going to score from outside the dots on a goalie like Hellebuyck, he’s an unbelievable goalie, and you’re not going to beat him clean every time. I think anytime you can get chaos and bodies to the net, that kind of disrupts things, and obviously disrupts things for him too. I think we did a great job of that tonight.

On if tonight’s win is any more special, against the NHL’s top team
You can see it both ways. There are 82 games in the regular season, so it’s one game in a long list of games, but it’s a really big game for our team. I think just knowing that we can bounce back like that and knowing that we can dominate top teams like that. I think it’s a huge confidence game for us.

On closing the game out in the third after how the third period went on Monday
Yeah, definitely. Dewey came in here and said that they only had one or two shots in the third period, so if you’re playing with the lead and they only had two shots, you’re going to keep that lead. Obviously, Ritter played really well tonight, too and knowing we have him back there to bail us out when we need him is huge, but in the third, we didn’t really give him many chances to have to bail us out.

Jim Hiller
On if tonight shows how good this team can be when they check for 60 minutes
I think so. I don’t know if it’s a lesson, I don’t know what it is, but it’s an example, maybe, of how good we can be. It’s hard to be really good like that night after night, it’s 82 games in a season, but it gives us an example of what is possible if we all play together, a certain style of play.

On the team’s ability this season to respond after a bad loss
I don’t know if it’s those specific losses against San Jose, we’ve usually responded pretty well after a loss, just generally. That one the other night did not feel good for anybody and so I think that may have had a little extra motivation for us tonight, the way that one went down in the third period. I just think, for the most part, there’s a lot of character, and we’ve bounced back pretty well after losing a game, whether we’ve play well or we don’t.

On shutting the game down in the third period
I thought we checked really well and the penalty kill was really good, that was opportunities for them, they have a terrific power play, so I thought that was a really important part of the game. I just thought everybody was in sync, everybody was pretty committed to taking the opportunity offensively when it was there and when it was, putting it in. I thought we were physical tonight too and I thought we probably wore them down a little bit by the end. I think we put some miles on their defense, that was an important part of the game. So, there’s a lot of things that layered on top of each other to have the night we had where we shut them down.

On getting three goals from direct offensive plays
Yeah, I thought we had a chance for more, but you saw there was no hesitation a few times just to shoot it and there were people in and around it, so that was good and we get rewarded with a couple ones. It was a funny one, Kevin’s was a funny one, but we had some nice plays too that we didn’t find the back of that on.

On remaining level between a bad loss on Monday and a good win tonight
You don’t want to get too high or too low. Again, we were disappointed with the San Jose game, but you can’t just feel like everybody sucks and we’re a bad team and all that kind of stuff. It’s just, there’s just so many games that you just have to keep a relative even keel. The important thing about tonight, not just the fact that they were top of the league was just how we did it, how we played, and what’s possible when we all play together like that. That’s the one that you take out of this game and you carry it with you, that was more important.

Notes –
• Captain Anze Kopitar (1-1=2) opened the scoring in tonight’s contest with his seventh goal of the season, extending his point streak against Winnipeg to a sixth game (7-3=10), dating back to Feb. 28, 2023. Kopitar’s goal was the 122nd of his career scored on the power play, one shy of tying Dave Taylor (123) for the third-most tallies in franchise history on the man-advantage.
• With the goal, Kopitar has now surpassed Marcel Dionne (70) for the most game-opening goals in franchise history with 71. Kopitar’s assist marked his 20th of the season, becoming the 23rd skater in league history to reach this threshold on 19 different occasions.
• Tonight marked Kopitar’s 697th career home game, the fourth-most among all active skaters behind Ryan Suter (740), Brent Burns (723), and Alex Ovechkin (719). It was also Kopitar’s 1,396th career game played, which ties Stan Mikita for 43rd-most in NHL history.
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-1=2) notched his 11th goal and 12th assist of the season, extending his point streak to a third game (2-3=5), dating back to Nov. 23, 2024. Kempe’s 10 career points (3-7=10) against the Winnipeg Jets breaks a tie with Jake Muzzin (2-7=9), Lubomir Visnovsky (4-5=9) and Luc Robitaille (6-3=9) for the sixth-most points against the Jets/Thrashers in franchise history.
• Forward Phillip Danault (1-0=1) scored his second goal of the season in the middle frame of tonight’s contest, which stands as the game-winner. Danault’s 12 career home points (3-9=12) against Winnipeg breaks a tie with Jonathan Marchessault (8-3=11) and David Perron (5-6=11) for sole possession of the third-most home points against the Jets franchise among active Quebec-born skaters, while his 23 points overall (9-14=23) sits one point shy of Perron (12- 12=24) for the second-most overall.
• Forward Kevin Fiala(1-0=1) scored his eighth goal of the season (8-6=14) and extended his point streak (2-4=6) to six straight games against the Jets dating back to October 27th, 2022 (6-4 Jets).
• Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov (0-1=1) recorded his seventh assist of the season for his ninth point (2-7=9) of the campaign. It is Gavrikov’s fifth assist (0- 5=5) in nine career games played against the Jets.
• Forward Alex Laferriere (0-2=2) recorded his seventh and eighth assists of the season for his fifth multi-point game of the campaign. Laferriere’s first assist came on the man-advantage, tying his single-season career high in power play points with three (1-2=3).
• Forward Alex Turcotte (0-1=1) collected his first career point against the Jets with his sixth assist (1-6=7) of the campaign.
• Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-1=1) picked up his 12th assist of the season, tying Buffalo’s Owen Power for the most assists from a blueliner selected in
the 2021 NHL Draft through the first quarter of this season. The assist marked the first point of his career against the Winnipeg Jets.
• Defenseman Joel Edmundson (0-1=1) tallied his fourth assist of the season, becoming the second Manitoba-born skater and first Manitoba-born
defenseman in Kings franchise history to record a point against the modern Winnipeg Jets team. Three Manitoba-born defenseman recorded points for the
Kings against the original Winnipeg jets team, including Lyle Phair (1-0=1), Brian Engblom (0-5=5) and Grant Ledyard (3-8=11).
• Goaltender David Rittich stopped 13 of 14 shots for his 100th career win, becoming the eighth Czech goaltender in league history to reach this mark.
Rittich stopped his first penalty shot attempt faced in a Kings uniform against Jets forward Rasmus Kupari, Rittich’s first penalty shot attempt against since his own tenure with the Jets (04/13/2023 @ COL; Save vs. Lars Eller). With the save, Rittich improves his career record to three saves on five

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 10:30 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.