FINAL – Kings 2, Panthers 5 – Moore, Anderson, Hiller

The LA Kings (6-5-4) came up short to the Florida Panthers (7-6-1) Thursday night at Crypto.com Arena, falling by a final score of 5-2.

After first period goals by Anze Kopitar and Corey Perry, the Kings were held off the scoresheet the rest of the way, surrendering four consecutive tallies to the defending Stanley Cup Champions.

Florida got out in front first with an early goal at 2:06 of the first period. A point shot from Jeff Petry got kicked straight out to Sam Bennett, who quickly put the rebound past Anton Forsberg and make it 1-0 for the visitors.

Before the midway point of the opening frame, with Brad Marchand serving a penalty for holding the stick, Adrian Kempe let a shot go that got redirected right in front of the net by Kopitar and evened the game up, 1-1 at 9:23.

Less than two minutes later, the Kings took the lead when Mikey Anderson found Perry with a long stretch pass up the middle. The feed set up a breakaway opportunity, which Perry chipped over goaltender Sergei Bobrobvsky’s left shoulder to put LA in front, 2-1.

But before the end of the period Florida found the equalizer on a takeaway that came deep in the Kings zone. Brad Marchand took control of the puck and flipped it into the net at 17:30 send the game into the first intermission even once again at 2-2.

The Panthers went back in front at 11:45 of the second period when Sam Reinhart used a backhand shot from in front of the net to make it a 3-2 game.

Then Florida added on with insurance at 8:41 of the third on a shorthanded tally by Anton Lundell that made it 4-2.

Marchand capped off the scoring and put the game out of reach for the Kings with his second goal of the game at 12:36 of the final period.

Kopitar’s tally was the lone man-advantage goal of the contest, with the Kings going 1-for-4 on the power play. In addition, they held Florida’s power play to 0-for-2.

Bobrovsky stopped 24 of the 26 shots that LA put on goal to earn the win, while Forsberg turned out 19 attempts in a losing effort.

Postgame thoughts from Trevor Moore and Mikey Anderson, as well as head coach Jim Hiller are below.

Trevor Moore

Mikey Anderson
On how the loss felt to him
Not ideal. I thought overall, it wasn’t a terrible game by us. I think a lot of things we liked, but again, a few mistakes end up in the net. That’s the way it goes. I mean, they’re a great team for a reason, so they don’t need much to capitalize.

On not being able to string wins together this season
I think as of late, it hasn’t been bad games. Sometimes you just come out with a bad result. Sometimes it’s little mistakes, like I said, that lead to goals against that you play high-level teams, which, again, we think we are, and know we are. That can be the difference. You don’t need much to put it in.

On the team’s offensive struggles
Sometimes maybe it’s us looking for a perfect play. Sometimes maybe it’s the other team, you’ve got to give them credit too. They defend hard. I mean, there’s a reason why they win.

On Corey Perry’s presence within the team
He’s played enough games now, he’s been around. He knows what it takes. I mean, he’s a guy I think everyone will look to, even if he’s a little quieter and maybe not always the vocal guy, you watch him play, whatever we are, 14 games in, it’s pretty evident he’s making a mark.

On the better results for the team’s penalty kill of late
A big help is taking less [penalties]. I mean, if you play the same 5-10, guys, and they know what we’re doing, it’s hard. They’ll make changes, but trying to get back to what we want to do and focus more about us, less about what they’re doing. And yeah, it’s been something to try and keep building on.

Jim Hiller
On what disappointed him in the loss
The shorthanded goal, and then we have a chance to put our stamp on it, and we had one go the other way- not the first time this year either. So that’s a that’s a big momentum swing in the game. It was messy at the end, that’s, that’s not as much- that was the big moment. We came out with lots of energy in the third period, we had three or four good looks around Bobrovsky, had a chance to push and then shot ourselves in the foot I guess you call it.

On his team’s mental mistakes that have plagued them
I would say that they probably happen all over the league all season. It’s very few times that, because the league is so good, that a player or two can just go and make something happen on their own. The game is a game of mistakes. When somebody makes a mistake, then somebody takes advantage of it. And right now, when we’re making a mistake, they’re taking pretty good advantage of it. They made a few mistakes tonight too. They took some penalties tonight too. We just are not taking advantage of those opportunities in those times.

On the way the game went and his team’s offensive struggles
The game is usually a one goal league, you know what I mean. If we get a lead early, they’re probably going to push it. It’s probably going to be tight. That’s the story of our team. It’s always a tight game, but we had opportunities. They were able to finish. We did not finish. But what I would say is we were around their net a fair amount. Perry scored a breakaway goal tonight. But if you want to score goals, you’ve got to go to the front of the net. And if you haven’t scored enough, I would argue it’s because you haven’t been there enough. And to get those breakdowns, mistakes, it’s hard to score on the outside, you’ll get some, but you’re not going to get a lot.

On the upcoming schedule with a long road trip beginning
We got a long flight out to Pittsburgh tomorrow, so we’ll get a practice in. I think that’s always good. The practice time this season in particular, is few and far between. So we’ll have a long day, have a practice, and then a two o’clock game. There’s not much time for anything, really, and you just have to make sure that we minimize as many of the mistakes as you can. You’re never going to go clean and then we’ve got to find a way to score some goals more in and around the net.

Notes –
– Captain Anze Kopitar (1-0=1) scored his first goal of the season and the 441st of his career tonight at Crypto.com Arena.
– The center’s goal was the 125th of his career to be scored on the man-advantage, tying David Pastrnak and teammate Corey Perry for the eighth most among active players.
– The tally marked Kopitar’s 449th career power play point (125-324=449), putting him one shy of joining Marcel Dionne (172-298=461) as the only skaters in franchise history to record 450 power play points.
– Kopitar’s goal tonight stands as the ninth of his career against the Florida Panthers, tying former Kings captain Dustin Brown (9G) for the most against the Atlantic Division club in Kings history.
– Forward Adrian Kempe (0-1=1) extended his team lead in assists with his 11th helper of the campaign.
– Forward Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) picked up his 10th assist of the season, securing his fourth consecutive season reaching double-digit assists. Only Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty (5x each) have recorded more 10-assist seasons with the Kings before turning 24 years old. Byfield now sits one helper shy (101A) of tying Rob Blake (102A) for the eighth most assists by a Kings skater before the age of 24.
– Forward Corey Perry (1-0=1) scored his sixth goal of the season while playing in his 700th career home game; the 40-year-old is now tied with Kempe and Kevin Fiala for the most goals among all Kings skaters through the first 15 games of the 2025-26 campaign.
– Defenseman Joel Edmundson (0-1=1) collected his sixth assist of the season, tying Anze Kopitar for third on the team in the category behind Byfield (10 A) and Kempe (11 A).
– Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-1=1) recorded his third point of the season with his second assist in as many games (0-1=1; Nov. 4 vs. WPG).
– Per NHL PR, with Anze Kopitar, Corey Perry and Brad Marchand each scoring, tonight’s contest marks only the third time in the past 20 years that three players age 37 or older each scored in the same game. The only other instances involved Shane Doan, Marian Hossa and Michal Rozsival on Feb. 4, 2016 with the Coyotes and Blackhawks as well as Jaromir Jagr, Bryce Salvador and Patrik Elias on March 14, 2014 with the Devils and Panthers.

The Kings will have a day off tomorrow as they travel to Pittsburgh to begin their upcoming road trip which starts on Sunday against the Penguins at 11 a.m. PT.