FINAL – Kings 2, Penguins 4 – Moore, Danault, Hiller

The LA Kings dropped their third straight game, their second of the season on home ice, by a 4-2 final score against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Inside the game’s first five minutes, the Kings opened the scoring through forward Warren Foegele. Foegele started the play with an effective forecheck, winning the puck below the goal line and feeding defenseman Cody Ceci at the right point. Ceci fed forward Trevor Moore in the slot, who one-touched the puck to Foegele for the shot, which he buried for his first goal of the season and an early 1-0 advantage.

The Kings doubled their lead just shy of five minutes later with a tic-tac-toe goal off the rush. After forward Joel Armia broke up the play in his defensive zone, he led the rush the other way down the left wing. Armia used a crafty stickhandle to create space, before he fed forward Quinton Byfield with a pass through the slot. Byfield then worked it to forward Kevin Fiala at the back post for a tap-in goal, his third of the season, and the two-goal lead.

Skating on the game’s first power play, Pittsburgh pulled a goal back 6:37 into the second period to get on the board. Forward Evgeni Malkin took a feed from forward Bryan Rust and worked his way around the perimeter. Malkin eventually moved into the left-hand circle and fired a low shot, through the fivehole of Kings goaltender Anton Forsberg and in to bring the visitors within 2-1.

Just 41 seconds later, the Penguins tied the game at two. Forward Connor Dewar applied pressure on what looked to be a relatively harmless situation, but he won the puck on the forecheck and used a quick shot to beat Forsberg again through the fivehole for his first goal of the season, sending the game into the second intermission tied at two goals apiece.

Pittsburgh made it three unanswered goals to take its first lead of the game with a shorthanded tally. Going 2-on-1 the other way against the second Kings power-play unit, Rickard Rakell fired a shot off the bar and out, but the rebound kicked around and forward Filip Hallander finished at the near post for his first career NHL goal as the Penguins pulled ahead 3-2.

Forward Sidney Crosby hit the empty net inside the final minute of regulation to cap off a 4-2 Pittsburgh victory.

Hear from Moore, forward Phillip Danault and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s game.

Trevor Moore

Phillip Danault
On where he felt tonight’s loss went wrong for the Kings
I would say best game 5-on-5, we got a lot of chances just got to bury. Obviously the penalty-kill goal and their power-play goal as well [hurt] and that’s pretty much the game right there.

On the backbreaker of the shorthanded game-winning goal
Yeah. I mean, it was a tough goal. Obviously they got the winner, right/We kept pushing after that, all game, and it didn’t go in. They took advantage.

On the biggest areas for improvement right now on the penalty kill
I mean, it’s a shot from the dot, so I don’t know. He’s a good player, like he’s going to find those little holes and he found it so maybe we could’ve cleared it before that, it’s a little mistake that ends up in the back of the net. They have really good players but every team has a good power play so we can’t afford those mistakes.

On if he would agree that the Kings had enough chances but did not finish
100 percent. It was just a matter that. We could have buried many more than two, that’s for sure.

Jim Hiller
On what he would consider to be the biggest area to improve right now
I don’t know if there’s one thing in particular. You look at the result and it’s zero points and that sucks. If you look at the game as a whole and you say, got to finish better, that’s just going to practice and trying to stay sharp, that’s one, but it’s hard to manufacture that. Their goalie played excellent and that was the difference in the game. We’re not going to try to dissect too much here. We haven’t given up a lot over the last three or four games, so we’re just going to try to pull ourselves out of it. We’re in a hole and we’re in a funk. There’s no question.

On the thought process into aligning the centers as they did with Kopitar out
I think the one thing is Phil’s line hadn’t been going great yet, so we just wanted to give that maybe a different look. We contemplated putting Turc right with Kuzy and Juice but we just thought maybe that other needed line needed a different look as well. So that’s kind of what the thought was to go behind that.

On if he sees similar inconsistencies between early-season losses
We brought our penalties down, let’s say that, but then we still gave one up, so that’s obviously a theme. We haven’t won the special teams battle yet this season. That’s an important part of any hockey game, it’s the special teams battle. Hard to win if you don’t win the special teams battle, so that that’s the one. We could have scored a power play goal, we had our opportunities there and then we gave one up. If you can point to one area, that’s the area you’re going to point to.

On chances created that went unfinished in tonight’s game
Yeah, there’s not much. You’ve just got to find a way to put it in the back of the net and again, give the goalie credit. Three posts, we beat him on those, so three posts and then some really good saves by him where we had what we like to call him Grade-A’s when you’re kind of that tight with the goaltender and he beat us. Even Laf at the end on the shorthanded [chance] had a good look right from in tight and the goaltender made the save.

On where he feels the power play is at right now
Yeah, it’s up and down. Tonight was probably our worst night of entering the zone and getting control, you saw that particularly on the one in the third period, where really, that’s a time when you’ve got a chance to get yourself back in and win the hockey game and we didn’t get that done, so that was really disappointing. Now, I take it back to Minnesota in the third period and we scored the big goal that we had to score. It goes up and down but I didn’t think our power play tonight was very sharp.

On any updates on Anze Kopitar at this time
We’re going to take a closer look at it still probably in the morning and then maybe we might have a better update for you tomorrow. We’re still kind of evaluating where it’s at.

Notes –
– Forward Warren Foegele (1-0=1) scored his first goal of the season, his second career goal against Pittsburgh.
– Forward Kevin Fiala (1-0=1) scored his third goal of the season, marking both his second tally in as many games played at Crypto.com Arena. Fiala becomes the fifth Swiss-born player in league history to record goals in his team’s first two home games to start a season, joining Timo Meier (2GP, 2-0=2; Oct. 5-10, 2024 w/NJD), Roman Josi (2GP, 2-2=4; Oct. 17-24, 2024 w/NSH), Nino Niederreiter (3GP, 3-0=3; Oct. 14-28, 2021 w/CAR) and Damien Brunner (3GP, 3-0=3; Jan. 22-29, 2013 w/DET). Fiala now has eight points (4-4=8) in as many career home games against the Pittsburgh Penguins, dating back to Oct. 22, 2016 (w/ NSH).
– Forward Trevor Moore (0-1=1) tallied his first assist of the season, his sixth career point (2-4=6) against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Moore’s assist marked his 114th helper as a member of the Kings, tying Frank St. Marseille for the ninth most assists by an undrafted skater in Kings franchise history, and his 107th career point registered at home (50-57=107), tying Eddie Joyal (55-52=107) for the seventh most home points by an undrafted skater in franchise history.
– Defenseman Cody Ceci (0-1=1) picked up his first assist of the season on Foegele’s game-opening marker, his first point as a member of the LA Kings.
– Center Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) picked up his third assist of the season, the 94th helper of his career, to tie Jimmy Carson (94 A) for the ninth most assists by a Kings skater at age 23 or younger.
– Forward Joel Armia (0-1=1) registered his third helper of the campaign, his first on home ice as a member of the Kings.

The Kings are scheduled to hit the ice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.