FINAL – Kings 1, Devils 4 – Kopitar, Fiala, Hiller

The LA Kings remain in search of their first home victory of the season, following a 4-1 defeat against the New Jersey Devils on Saturday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Inside the game’s first 90 seconds, New Jersey opened the scoring through forward Nico Hischier. Defenseman Luke Hughes threw a puck towards the net from the right point and Hischier got a good deflection on the way through, sending it past Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper for his third tally of the season and an early 1-0 advantage for the visitors.

New Jersey also scored early in the second period to open up a multi-goal advantage. With the Kings caught in a line change, New Jersey attacked 3-on-2 off the rush in transition. Forward Luke Glendening threaded a pass through to forward Brian Halonen, who beat Kuemper from a sharp angle to make it 2-0 Devils. The goal for Halonen was his first career NHL goal, coming in his 12th career NHL game.

With just two seconds remaining on the third Kings power play of the evening, the Devils scored a shorthanded goal to take a 3-0 lead. An unsuccessful pinch to hold the zone led to a 2-on-1 rush the other way, led by forward Dawson Mercer. The Newfoundland native kept the puck himself down the left wing and picked his spot, past Kuemper on the glove side, for his seventh goal of the season and a three-goal advantage.

Just shy of the halfway mark in the third period, the Kings got on the board through forward Andrei Kuzmenko to make it a 3-1 game. Forward Alex Laferriere cycled the puck down low , down the wall, to forward Anze Kopitar below the goal line. Kopitar spun and worked the puck into the slot, where Kuzmenko buried it past Devils goaltender Jacob Markstrom on the glove side for his third of the season, bringing the hosts within two goals.

With the Kings on a 6-on-4 power play, Mercer scored his second goal of the game, into the empty net, to seal the deal with a 4-1 Devils victory.

Hear from Kopitar, forward Kevin Fiala and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s defeat.

Kevin Fiala

Anze Kopitar
On the team’s struggles on home ice to begin the season
Yeah I don’t think we’re scoring many goals, obviously. There’s not enough dirty goals, if you will. We’re not doing very good on our special teams and that usually translates into losses.

On his impression of where the team is at right now, bigger picture
Yeah, I mean, the record is not where we want it to be, also could have been worse. I don’t think we’re very far off from what we were last year. Now, it’s 12,13, games in, everybody’s starting to feel a little bit more comfortable, I think, just the chemistry is getting to a point where we’re making better plays just kind of feeding off each other. Qe’ll continue to build that and go from there.

On what the power play needs to do more of to break through
Maybe trying to be too cute, maybe not shooting enough. Maybe we need to take a bit of a deeper dive into it and analyze and see what we can come up with.

On if he feels the chances generated tonight would result in a win most nights
Yeah, I think so. There was some good o-zone time, but as I said before, I don’t think there’s enough stuff going on around the net, so we’ll correct that. When we get that going, I think those second, third opportunities are going to present itself and usually it’s a little bit easier to score on those. That’s what we’ve got to get to.

Jim Hiller
On if it was the type of game they’d usually win when they played the way they did
Well, you’d think so. If you think back to the San Jose game, probably little bit similar. We come out on the right side of it and maybe this is the payback for that one in a week. You’re happy when you got the two points in San Jose, and you’re disappointed with how you played. Tonight, you’re happy with the way you played, but you’re disappointed you don’t get the two points.

On if the team needs to get to the front of the net more often
There’s a lot of things that happen. We saw their first chance, quick shot from Hughes to the net. Hischier happens to be skating past, nice deflection and it’s in the back of the net. We launched about 50 of those similar type of plays. We had people in and around it, whether we didn’t get a stick on it or didn’t get in the goalie’s eyes, probably a combination of both things, but that’s the way hockey works some nights. You throw as many pucks as we did with people in and around the net, you usually come up with more than one.

On if the power play is in need of getting a goal to get going again
Yeah it didn’t generate when we really needed to generate. I think that’s the biggest thing. We weren’t dangerous and sometimes you don’t score, but you’re dangerous. I think the other night, we had eight chances on the power play that looked dangerous and the puck didn’t go in. Tonight, we didn’t execute and we weren’t dangerous. It’s something we have to look a little closer at as to as to why. I mean, we can say close, but at some point, if you don’t get the results or aren’t dangerous, then you got to look a little closer.

On if Kempe is pressing, not having scored the last four games
No, I wouldn’t say that. The only way he’d be pressing is he wants to win. He had some great looks the other night. He wants to win. I think sometimes that can come into a player, if you’re not scoring a lot, or the team’s not scoring, you want to win the game and that would be probably team wide. It wouldn’t be independent for Kempe.

On if Kuzmenko scoring can get him going on the right track
I hope so. Nice goal, great pass by Kopitar and great finish. It looked a little bit like those guys looked last year. So hopefully that sparks a little bit of relief. Kuzmenko puts a lot of pressure on himself too. Maybe a little bit of relief, nice goal, now let’s get going.

Notes –
– Forward Andrei Kuzmenko (1-0=1) scored his third goal of the campaign, the 75th goal of his career. Kuzmenko now has three goals (3-0=3) in seven games played against the New Jersey Devils.
– Captain Anze Kopitar (0-1=1) picked up his sixth assist of the season, extending his season-opening home assist streak to a third game, dating back to Oct. 7 against Colorado. Kopitar is the third player in franchise history to record a season-opening home assist streak of three games or more at age 38 or older, joining Bob Nevin (4 GP, 0-5=5; March 20 – April 3,
1976) and Larry Robinson (2x; Last: 6 GP, 0-7=7; Oct. 4 –19, 1990).
– The captain suited up for his 30th career game against New Jersey, breaking a tie with Mike Murphy and Mark Hardy (29 GP) to officially enter the top five for most games played against the Devils franchise in Kings history.
– Forward Alex Laferriere (0-1=1) notched his third helper of the year on Kuzmenko’s tally, his sixth point of the season (3- 3=6). With his assist, extended his point streak to four games (2-2=4), dating back to Sunday, Oct. 26th, in Chicago. This matches a career high from the previous season (2-4=6 from April 5 – 12, 2025). The native of Chatham, N.J., now has three points (1-2=3) in five career games played against the New Jersey Devils.

The Kings have a scheduled team day off tomorrow and will return to the ice for practice on Monday, November 3 at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.