FINAL – Kings 2, Lightning 1 – Forsberg, Kempe, Hiller

Adrian Kempe scored twice in the second period and Anton Forsberg stopped 31 of 32 shots as the LA Kings (15-10-9) secured a 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning (18-13-3) on Thursday night at Benchmark International Arena.

Kempe’s second period tallies came 10:37 apart from each other, and first erased a one goal deficit before giving LA the lead for good. The Kings blocked 22 shots in the victory, which saw them get out-shot 32-20.

The Lightning struck first to take the lead with the lone goal of the opening period from Oliver Bjorkstrand, who netted his fifth of the year on the power play at 12:54 to make it 1-0 in favor of Tampa Bay.

Kempe’s first of the contest came at 5:21 of the second and evened things up at 1-1. Corey Perry secured a loose puck in the neutral zone and found Anze Kopitar on the right wing, who led Kempe into the offensive end. Kempe released a wrist shot from just inside the blue line that made it through a defender’s legs and past goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to tie the game up with his 12th strike of the year.

The Swedish winger wasn’t done, however, scoring again later in the frame at 15:58 to give the Kings a 2-1 lead. Kempe’s second of the night and 13th of the season also came on a rush from the neutral zone where he beat the Tampa defense up the ice and went all the way to the net before deking to his backhand and causing Vasilevskiy to move out of position before slipping the puck into the open goal.

After taking the lead, the Kings killed off three different minor penalties during the remainder of action to hold on to the win and grab two points in the standings. The final penalty of the contest came with 1:05 remaining in the third while the Lightning had an extra attacker on the ice as Perry was called for holding the stick.

LA finished 4-for-5 on the penalty kill and ended at 0-for-1 on the power play in the contest. Vasilevskiy suffered the loss for Tampa Bay despite turning out 18 of the Kings’ 20 shots.

Postgame thoughts from Forsberg, Kempe, as well as head coach Jim Hiller are below.

Anton Forsberg

Adrian Kempe
On what it meant for the team to pull out the win on the road
It felt good. Good team win. I think we played a pretty solid game and obviously too many penalty kills, and that’s on me as well. I’ve got to step up and be better in that area. But other than that, I think Forsy, had helluva game again. But overall, I think we play a pretty solid game.

On what he’s seen in the play of Forsberg this week
It’s great. I always say this, they give us a chance to win every night, whether it’s Darcy or Forsberg, or somebody else, it’s awesome to have those guys back there and tonight was one of those nights, it’s was going to be a grindy game. Last game of the road trip here, and we’re almost at Christmas, so these are hard games and Forsy came to play right away, and I think we responded quite well and just got the job done tonight. I think that was a good team win. I think we needed it, and got the energy and the motivation and the confidence back in the team. So I think that’s good.

On what he saw before his first goal
I had lots of room in the neutral zone. Just try to skate it in to the o-zone and then their D kind of just backed off, so I tried to find the spot between his legs to shoot in. Usually it’s pretty tough for the goalie when you shoot like that.

On his second goal where he beat Tampa’s defense up the ice
I was fresh. Felt good. Legs felt good. So just tried to beat him up the ice, and then fake the goalie a little bit and go around him so it worked.

On the team effort, blocking a lot of shots in the game
Yeah I think the effort’s been there all year. We block shots, we play defense, we commit. Obviously the offense and the goals haven’t been coming for us, but I think the overall team game and our identity has been there all year. I think that’s most important thing, and if we keep doing that, I think the wins are going to keep coming.

Jim Hiller
On the overall effort from his team to secure the win on the road
It was a tough back-to-back. Anytime you go Tampa/Florida or Florida/Tampa, they’re two of the elite teams in league. We spent a lot of energy last night in Florida trying to battle back. So I didn’t think we had quite the same legs, but our will was there, and I think that really was what carried the day for us.

On the decision to start Anton Forsberg for the second straight day
Well, that’s atypical, right? Nowadays, the goalies don’t usually play back-to-back. Felt like he wasn’t overtaxed in Florida, we played a pretty good game and kept him away from the net so he wasn’t overtaxed. So it gave us a thought that maybe we should do it. Our goalie coach Mike Buckley talked to him, and between the two of them, came up with a plan. Looks like the right decision now.

On Forsberg’s fitness level that allowed him to play both nights
With him and [Copley] too, the physical shape that those two are in. Forsy’s on the bike every day after practice, but he could run marathons, this guy. So probably, for him, it was a little bit easier maybe than most.

On the play of Adrian Kempe with his two goals
Really, really needed those. When we were a little bit flat at times offensively, Juice is the guy who has shown us that he can come up with big goals. And I thought there were two, both big time goals really highlight real type of goals, both of them, even though one was the shot, just the quickness of the release. You need your goal scorers to score big goals for us, so that’s what got it done there.

On the team’s penalty kill performance late in the game
So important, and that’s an extremely good power play. [Kucharov] was out, so that made it just a little bit easier for us, but I still thought they moved it around really well. And then when we did break down, Forsberg was there to cover us up.

Notes –
-Forward Adrian Kempe (2-0=2) tallied both his 12th and 13th goals of the year tonight at Benchmark International Arena, leapfrogging Kevin Fiala (12 G) for the most by a Kings skater this season.
-Kempe’s second-period goal marked his first career point in Tampa, while his go-ahead marker secured his 100th career multi-point effort and team-leading eighth such effort of the current campaign. The native of Kramfors, Sweden, ties Ziggy Palffy (100 GP) for the 14th most multi-point games in Kings franchise history while breaking a tie with Palffy (29 GP) with his 30th career multi-goal game. Only nine skaters in Kings history have recorded more multi-goal games than Kempe has.
-Captain Anze Kopitar (0-1=1) provided the primary set-up on Kempe’s first goal, his 11th assist of the 2025-26 season. Kopitar now has 849 career assists and 1,295 points (446-849=1,295); he needs just 12 points to tie Marcel Dionne (550-757=1,307) for the LA Kings franchise scoring record.
-Kopitar’s assist tonight also marked his 200th career point (66-134=200) in the month of December, marking his third different calendar month with 200 points (235 in March; 200 in February). He is joined by Marcel Dionne as the only two skaters in LA Kings history with at least 200 career points in multiple months.
-The 38-year-old center skated in his 1,484th career regular season game tonight in Tampa, tying fellow two-time Frank J. Selke Trophy-winner Rod Brind’Amour for 28th most games played in NHL history.
-Forward Corey Perry (0-1=1) notched his eighth assist of the season on Kempe’s game-tying goal and is now within two helpers of tying Larry Robinson (10 in 1991-92) for the most assists in a season by a Kings player age 40 or older, per NHL PR.
-Perry played in his 713th career regular-season road game this evening, tying Mike Gartner (713 GP) for 35th most in NHL history.
-The Kings had 21 blocked shots tonight, their third highest single-game total this season behind Oct. 28 at San Jose and Nov. 28 at Anaheim.
-Goaltender Anton Forsberg made 31 saves on 32 shots on goal to earn his fifth victory of the campaign, his fifth career victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Kings return home for a pair of back-to-back games at Crypto.com Arena this week, beginning with a Monday night battle against the Columbus Blue Jackets at 7 p.m.