FINAL – Kings 1, Wild 3 – Kempe, Laferriere, Hiller

The LA Kings saw their five-game winning streak come to an end, as they skated to a 3-1 loss in Minnesota in the opening game of a two-game trip against Central Division opposition.

The Kings opened the scoring just shy of five minutes into the game, as they converted on the power play for a 1-0 lead. Skating 5-on-4, forward Kevin Fiala threaded a seam pass to forward Adrian Kempe, who fired a one-timer from the right-hand circle past Minnesota goaltender Filip Gustavsson and into the top corner for his team-leading 28th goal of the season and the early advantage.

Early in the second period, Minnesota tied the game with a power-play goal of their own. Just four seconds into their first attempt on the man advantage, defenseman Jared Spurgeon sent a shot towards the net from the right point, with forward Ryan Hartman getting a deflection on the way through, sending the puck past Kings netminder Darcy Kuemper and in for his ninth goal of the season and a 1-1 score.

Inside five minutes to play in regulation, Minnesota took its first lead of the game with another power-play goal, pulling ahead 2-1. Moving in from the left-hand circle, forward Mats Zuccarello beat Kuemper on the blocker side with a wrist shot, making it three goals in total on the man advantage in the game. Zuccarello’s goal was his 15th of the season as the hosts pulled ahead by a goal.

The Wild added an empty-net goal inside two minutes to play, as they skated to the final score of 3-1. Forward Marcus Johansson was the goalscorer, as Spurgeon collected his second assist of the game with the lone helper.

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

Alex Laferriere

Adrian Kempe
On the team’s game tonight and the outcome coming down the moments in the game
Overall, I think we played a pretty good game, I think they did as well, I think it was pretty even throughout the game, a ton of chances going back and forth. Both teams played solid offensively, obviously at the end of the day, penalties and the PK came up short today. It’s been good all year, obviously it’s tough when you lose at the very last minute. It’s frustrating at the moment, for sure.

On the number of penalties piling up over the last few games
Yeah, myself included and the team, I think we can do a better job there. Obviously, at the end of the game too, I feel like we had a lot of PP’s and I feel like they were, not looking for them, but if they see something small they’re going to call it, especially this is how it is when you’re a home team sometimes. I’m not saying it’s just because we’re here, it happens for us when we’re at home too and when you’re down or it’s even, you have less penalties than other teams they make one for you. Like I said, frustrated, but yeah, PK has been so good all year, so it’s something that we rely on every game.

On if he felt the Kings brought their home style of play into this game on the road
Yeah, I think so, I think it was solid tonight, kind of like the last home game against Nashville. Not a ton of chances going either way, but we’re playing pretty solid defensively and starting to play more consistent for every game now. Obviously it’s tough to win every game, so you’re going to come short sometimes and I feel like tonight was one of those times where it could have gone either way. It’s 1-1 with three or four minutes left and then they get a PP goal. It’s tough, but I feel like the consistency of the team game was there tonight for the most part.

On the defensive effort specifically tonight
We’ve been talking about it too, especially we’ve been so good at home all year and we kind of talked about it going into this road trip that as long as we keep doing those things that we do at home, playing as consistent as possible, you might not always get the results but at least we’re confident about our game, confident of our defensive play. Like I said, still frustrated about the loss tonight, but I think some parts of the game that were good.

On if he sees signs of improvement from the power play, including the goal tonight
It’s been better, I think, more confidence I feel like. It’s nice to get one for myself and for the power play as well. It’s just starting to see that we move the puck a little bit more connected, try to shoot the puck a little bit more. I think for the power plays we had tonight, we could have a couple more for sure, but yeah, some positives out of the power play for sure.

Jim Hiller
On how the game tonight was ultimately decided late in the third period
There’s two things, right? Somebody making a mistake, which that was ours, on us, and then somebody has to make a play and then they made a play, two plays I guess, probably the pass and the shot. So, at first it takes someone to make a mistake, and then it takes the other guys, whether it’s us or them, to capitalize on the mistakes. We made the mistake, they capitalized on it.

On if he felt the team brought the defensive game from home ice into this one tonight
We got a little sloppy in the third, second period I thought we played really well, good period. We probably had enough chances to come out with the lead in the third, I think that was probably important, Gustavsson played very well I thought, I don’t know if anybody else thought that. We probably still turned up way too many chances where we had a chance to shoot with traffic. Q finally got to the net, we hit him twice in the leg when he was in front of Gustavsson. One of those nights where, when we finally put it there, we didn’t get anything. It’s a winnable game. It’s a mistake. It’s execution on their side at the end.

On Alex Laferriere’s game tonight overall
He was dangerous tonight, our most dangerous player. The one in the second period, he came down the wing, he hit the butt-end on the wrist shot, that was going in. He was dangerous, he was our most dangerous guy and I thought at least he had a bit of a shot mentality where others did not and consequently, when you don’t get anything, you have to shoot it. You can’t always be pretty, you’ve got to shoot it, you’ve got to get in front of the net, find rebounds. We didn’t do enough of that tonight.

On if he is seeing encouraging signs on the power play and the goal scored tonight
Yeah, there’s no question. I think what we’ve got now is we’ve scored some nice goals, but that unit has to score, and the other unit, they‘ve got to score some dirty goals, some quick bang-bang plays where we just shoot it, we crash the net, there’s three bodies there. It’s nice to see the pretty goals go in but you’re never going to be really good unless you can get some of the dirtier type of goals on the power play as well.

On the impact of depth scoring for the team as a whole and specifically tonight
Well, that’s where we’re going at our best. Sammy’s line doesn’t score a lot, they’re a forechecking line, but I think there’s balance between Phil’s line, Kopi’s line and Q’s line. Tonight, one power-play goal, we don’t get anything on the other side of it, somebody there’s got to get us one. It doesn’t have to be just Kopi’s line or Q’s line, somebody’s got to get us one. We’ve been getting pretty balanced scoring lately and you can see what happens if you don’t get it, it just dries right up and makes it really hard to win.

Notes –
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) scored his team-leading 28th goal of the season, his sixth of the season on the man- advantage.
• Forward Kevin Fiala (0-1=1) tallied his 20th assist of the season, clinching his eighth career 20-assist season. He is one of only three skaters of Swiss nationality to have recorded as many helpers eight or more times, joining Roman Josi (12) and Mark Streit (9).
• Fiala is now the seventh different Kings skater to reach the 20-assist mark on the year.
• The Swiss winger extends his point streak against his former team to a sixth game (2-6=8), dating back to Oct. 19, 2023. He joins Anze Kopitar (2-9=11 in 7 GP from Feb. 24, 2011 – April 4, 2013), Jack Johnson (2-5=8 in 7 GP from Feb. 24, 2009 – Oct. 25, 2010), and Drew Doughty (2-6=8 in 6 GP from Feb. 28, 2021 – Nov. 8, 2022) as the fourth Kings skater to record a six-game point streak against Minnesota.
• Fiala’s helper marked his team-leading 18th power play point (9-9=18) of the season, breaking a tie with Kopitar (3-14=17).
• Defenseman Drew Doughty (0-1=1) collected his fourth power play assist of the year on Kempe’s opening marker. Per NHL PR, the native of London, Ontario, factored on a game-opening goal for the 111th time in his career and passed Alex Pietrangelo (110) for the seventh-most instances among active defensemen.

The Kings have a scheduled day off tomorrow and will return to the ice on Wednesday, March 19 at United Center in Chicago.