FINAL – Kings 4, Wild 1 – Laferriere, Kuemper, Hiller

The LA Kings made it five consecutive victories, following a convincing 4-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

After a period that seemed destined to go into the first intermission at 0-0, the Kings scored inside the final minute of play to take a 1-0 lead through 20 minutes. Forward Anze Kopitar curled into the right circle and got a shot on goal, that was kicked away by Minnesota goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, but forward Adrian Kempe delayed his path to the crease to time up with the rebound, which deflected off his skate and in for the game’s first goal, his team-leading 13th of the season.

Midway through the second period, the Kings doubled their advantage with a power-play goal. Forward Alex Laferriere was the scorer for the hosts, picking his spot from the left-hand circle for his 12th goal of the season, equaling his total from a season ago, in 54 fewer games. The goal for the second power-play unit was the first of the season, with forward Phillip Danault providing the screen in front of the goaltender.

Inside the final two minutes of play in regulation, the teams combined for three goals in total, bringing us to the final score of 4-1 Kings.

First, forward Trevor Moore picked the empty net from close range, pushing the Kings ahead 3-0 with his fifth goal of the season. Just over 40 seconds after Moore’s goal, the Wild got on the board through forward Yakov Trenin, who scored his second goal of the season to pull one back for the visitors. Still in the same minute of play, Moore buried his second empty-net goal of the evening for a multi-goal night, sealing the three-goal victory for the Kings.

Hear from Laferriere, goaltender Darcy Kuemper and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s victory.

Alex Laferriere

Darcy Kuemper
On coming away from Dallas and Minnesota with four points
We like the challenge of playing against top teams, you know, you have to be at your best, you need everybody, so those are fun as a group and good measuring sticks. We consider ourselves a top team, so when we play against those teams, we feel like we’ve got a lot to prove and I think we did a great job with it.

On coming back into the lineup tonight after missing nearly a month due to injury
First game back, it’s definitely nice to feel a couple early, I probably would have rather just [faced] a wrist shot from the point or something, but I’ll take it when it’s a save. I’ve just been feeling really good in practice, so it’s nice to go out and play a real game.

On the team’s defensive performance in tonight’s game, limiting a top opponent
They definitely have dangerous players. If you try to defend them 1-on-1, it’s pretty hard on guys, so I think we did a great job of working together, having layers and support on top players like [Kaprizov]. We’ve been doing a good job of it all year, there’s a lot of good players in this league and obviously he’s at the very tippy top, so we were sharp against him. As a goalie, it’s nice to see that.

On the Gavrikov/Anderson pairing and the way they’ve suppressed chances in front of him
They do such a good job in front of the net. When they’re out there, you feel like you’re seeing every shot and they’re very predictable out there. I think part of that is just they’ve got chemistry together, so they know where each other is going to be, and then they just seem to always be in the right spot and having great sticks. I always enjoy when they’re out there.

Jim Hiller
On how good he feels this team is, after that type of a victory
We’re a solid team, we’re a really solid team. I mean, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but when I say that, that’s a real compliment to our players, solid, top to bottom. We have a lot of players who’ve come in and out and injured and somebody else has come in, so very solid. A lot of depth, very, very solid.

On if he would classify tonight’s win as a “statement win”
I don’t know if I would say that, Kuemps was really good in the first period, we made some really poor plays, but again, that’s just the sign of a solid team, right? You’ve got the goaltending that held us and then I thought we played really well after that, there’s no question. I wouldn’t call it a statement win, but I talked about it before the game, our the third periods, if you just go back and look at our third periods since San Jose, it’s probably been our best period. That doesn’t mean that we scored more or had more shots, just best desperation, doing what you have to do to win a game. That’s what I’m really impressed with.

On the second power-play unit scoring their first goal of the season
Nobody asked me about Kevin being on that unit. He was, and Kevin was on the other unit too, so there’s a story for you. I’ll preface that, we had a plan to have Kevin play on both units tonight and so he started on that unit and I thought he was really good,and that gave us a little more danger on the flanks with him and Laf together and then Phil had a great screen. Laf’s shot was terrific, for sure, but Phil had a great screen in front of the net. There were probably three scenarios that Phil had a second effort, they just cleared the puck and Phil had a second effort to keep the puck in the zone. So, if you go back and look at that, you’ll see the work that Phil did. In the end, not even sure if he got an assist on it, but he had so much to do with that goal going in.

On the team’s defensive effort against the Kaprizov line
Well, you have to, because you can’t do it if one guy’s off. Kopitar’s line primarily up front against that line and then Mikey and Gavy, I’m sure Smitty got them on 90, 95 percent of the time against them. [Anderson and Gavrikov] have done that now night after night for 20, 25 games together, they’re just hard to play against, willing to play defense, they’ve got good sticks, it can be frustrating to play against them, but you need the forward line to do the job and backcheck, support things well. It’s five guys against those guys for sure.

On Alex Laferriere matching his goal total in 54 fewer games
It’s been a huge start for the first 27 games, really it has been, because there’s no secret there’s some of our players haven’t scored as much as they’re used to, as much they expected, we expected. The beauty of that is they’re still helping 55 left for those guys to still find the back of the net. It’s not like they’re not playing well, but they’re just not scoring, we’re used to them scoring more, so somebody has to fill the void and Laf’s done that for us. I would say about Laf, he was dangerous last year too, he was very dangerous. He was, I think, just shy of behind Juice at 5-on-5 as our second leading chance getter. So he didn’t score, he was snake bitten a little bit, but I’m not real surprised that he’s off to the start he is this year. He’s a dangerous offensive player.

On Brandt Clarke leaving the game and if that impacted his time on ice
Yeah, he’s all right, he’s all right and then 7D and Burr’s second game, Burr got in there a little more, played a little better, all those kinds of things. Protecting the lead in the third period typically isn’t when we run Clarkie out all the time. So, just a confluence of things, not too much there.

Notes –
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-1=2) scored his-team leading 13th goal of the season and picked up his 13th assist for his 11th multi-point effort of the campaign. The goal marked Kempe’s seventh career goal against the Wild, tying Ziggy Palffy, Justin Williams and Drew Doughty for the fourth most all-time among Kings skaters against Minnesota.
• Forward Anze Kopitar (0-1=1) picked up his 23rd assist of the season, extending his home assist streak to a fifth game (2-6=8), dating back to Nov. 23, 2024.
• With the assist, Kopitar establishes a five-game home assist streak for the fourth time in his career, his first such streak since his career-best eight-game home assist streak set in 2020-2021 (4-9=13; Feb. 11 – March 21, 2021).
• The assist marked Kopitar’s 815th career helper, breaking a tie with Gilbert Perreault for sole possession of 31st most in league history.
• Kopitar skated in his 1,400th career NHL game tonight, becoming the 43rd skater in League history to reach such mark and the fourth active player to do so, joining Ryan Suter (1,470), Alex Ovechkin (1,444) and Brent Burns (1,440).
• Tonight’s contest also marked Kopitar’s 700th career home game, surpassing Roman Hamrlik (699) for sole possession of the 46th-most home games played in League history. Per NHL PR, Kopitar becomes just the seventh player in NHL history to have an even 700 home and 700 road game split at the
1,400-game mark in their career.
• Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) notched his fifth assist of the season––his sixth career helper against the Wild––tying Nate Schmidt for the fifth most assists by an active Minnesota-born defenseman against the Wild.
• Forward Alex Laferriere (1-0=1) scored his 12th goal of the season, tying his single-season career high set last season. Laferriere has now scored goals in three of his last four games and has three points (1-2=3) in his last two games against Minnesota. The marker is his first career tally against the Wild and ultimately stood as the game-winning goal (GWG). Laferriere’s four GWGs this season are tied with Anze Kopitar for the most on the Kings.
• Forward Trevor Moore (2-0=2) scored a pair of empty-net goals for his fifth and sixth tallies of the season. Moore’s pair of empty-net goals marked his second and third such goals of the campaign, the second most on the Kings, and the most by any American skater this season.
• Forward Kevin Fiala (0-1=1) tallied his eighth assist of the season, tying Quinton Byfield for the eighth most amongst Kings skaters. Fiala’s assist on the
power play goal also marked his 10th power play point (2-8=10) of the season, tying Kopitar (2-8=10) for the team lead.
• Defenseman Jordan Spence (0-1=1) recorded his fifth assist and sixth point of the season, his first career assist against the Minnesota Wild. Spence’s eight career power play primary assists tie Flyers’ blueliner Cam York for the second most by a defenseman selected in the 2019 NHL Draft. Only Detroit’s Moritz Seider (25PPA1) has more.
• Goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 22 saves on 23 shots in his first game since Nov. 16. With the win, Kuemper improves his record on the season to 5-2-3.
• Per NHL PR, the Kings (9-2-1, 19 points) entered tonight’s game with a points percentage of .792 at home this season, which is the third best among all teams behind the Stars (10-2-0, .833 P%) and Jets (9-2-0, .818 P%). With the victory today, the Kings required their fewest games to 10 home wins since 2014-15 (10-2-1). In doing so, the Kings extended their home win streak to five games and surpassed the Penguins (4 GP) for the longest active run.

The Kings are scheduled to fly to New York tomorrow morning and will not hold a practice. The team will return to the ice for a practice day on Monday at UBA Arena in Elmont, NY.