FINAL – Kings 5, Avalanche 4 (SO) – Danault, Walker, Byfield, McLellan

The LA Kings came from two goals down in the third period as they skated to a 5-4 shootout victory over the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday evening at Ball Arena.

The Kings got multi-point efforts from Alex Iafallo (1-1-2) and Viktor Arvidsson (0-2-2), with additional goals coming from Phillip Danault, Gabe Vilardi and Sean Walker.

The Kings opened the scoring with the lone goal of the first period, as Vilardi made it three goals from his last four games. Forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan made a crafty move to enter the offensive zone with speed and dropped a pass to Vilardi in the slot, where he snapped his shot past Colorado netminder Alexandar Georgiev for his team-leading 16th goal of the season.

Colorado evened the score early in the second period with a power-play goal from forward J.T. Compher. After a collision took a pair of Kings penalty killers out of the play, Avalanche forwards Evan Rodrigues and Mikko Rantanen combined on a tic-tac-toe passing play to Compher at the back post, where he buried his sixth goal of the season.

The visitors answered with a power-play goal of their own, however, to re-take a one-goal advantage midway through the second. After Viktor Arvidsson got up from a big hit along the boards, he got up, took a pass from forward Alex Iafallo and hit Danault at the back post, where he buried his 11th goal of the season.

The Avalanche scored three times in less than three minutes to open up a 4-2 lead into the second intermission, with defenseman Cale Makar factoring into all three goals.

First, Makar fed forward Andrew Cogliano in transition, where the speedy winger snapped a shot past Kings netminder Pheonix Copley off the rush, his fifth goal of the season. Makar then converted a solo effort, as he danced into the slot and pulled the puck onto his forehand, burying from between the circle for a 3-2 advantage. With the teams playing 4-on-4, Makar started another play, as he fed Rantanen in front, who hit Rodrigues at the back post for a tap-in goal, pushing the score to 4-2 in favor of Colorado.

With a gutsy effort in the third, the Kings fought back to force overtime with a pair of goals in the final 20 minutes of regulation. First, with the Kings on a power play, they converted for the second time on the evening as Iafallo buried a feed from Arvidsson, right in front, to pull their team back within a goal. Midway through the third period, the Kings tied the game through Walker, who took a feed from Kevin Fiala, dragged into a shooting position and finished his second goal of the season from the slot.

Though neither team scored in overtime, the Kings won the game in the shootout as Arvidsson and forward Adrian Kempe scored to secure the second point.

Hear from Walker, Danault, forward Quinton Byfield and Head Coach Todd McLellan following the victory.

Quinton Byfield

Phillip Danault
On what he felt the Kings did to come back in the third period
I think we learned from the Buffalo game. We just stuck with it, we kept playing our game and we rallied back between the second and third. We weren’t cheating too much, we kept doing the right things and got rewarded again.

On Viktor Arvidsson’s resilience on his power-play goal
He got right back into the action and he fed me back door, it was an awesome feed. It was a great character win and great character from him, composure. He could have easily lost it there, but big play from him.

On sticking with the defensive structure in the third period
We didn’t cheat. We got back to the little details, our game, nobody cheated. We played solid defensively, we didn’t give up much and Cops was outstanding again. It was a big, big character win tonight.

Sean Walker
On his goal tonight and replacing Arthur Kaliyev as the team’s “sharpshooter”
I guess we’ll say that [laughs] but yeah, it was just nice. Kevin made a nice play and I just shot the puck in the net. Glad it went in.

On how he saw the play develop leading to his goal
It was getting late in the period, so we had to have an aggressive mentality. Lots guys were talking up the ice, I was prepared to dump it in but [Lizotte] called for it, so I made the play to him. He got it to Kev, who made a nice pass. Lots of communication and that definitely contributed.

On the team’s comeback in the third period
I think it was just about playing our game, we’ve done that all year. Get down and we’ve been able to battle back, so that’s kind of our identity right now, unfortunately, but hopefully we can play with some leads more often and just go from there.

On how he felt the Kings handled the big guns on Colorado tonight
I mean I don’t think we really did effectively slow them down too many times. [Makar] had a goal and an assist or two as well, so we can definitely do a better job of that. When they’re down a couple of guys, they’re going to be playing a lot more time throughout the night. Something we can definitely work on, shutting down other teams’ big guns.

Todd McLellan
On the team finding a way to comeback in the third period
The overall response was a big thing. Getting the power play early and capitalizing obviously give us some life and from there we had to check our way. We needed to open the game up a little bit, check our way through a couple more chances and then a big penalty kill at the end, so give guys credit. We weren’t obviously real good in the second period, I thought we cheated an awful lot and against a team like that they make you pay every time you try it. We fixed some of that in the third.

On the power play getting two goals tonight
The power play, they used some of the information we gave them before the game, it was maybe one of the areas they did. I thought some of the 5-on-5 stuff, we didn’t grasp or use the information, but on the powerplay they did, which was a nice thing to see. A couple of power plays earlier we’re quite frustrated but we stuck with it, moved the puck around quickly and capitalized when they had chances.

On Sean Walker contributing with a big goal tonight
D are obviously important defensively, but they can chip in offensively and Walks has steadily gotten better as the season went on. Obviously last year was a disaster for him as an individual, it takes a long time to get your game back, but I think he’s got better every night and he seems to be holding up well health-wise.

On getting two, timely penalty kills in the third period
Absolutely, especially against that powerplay. It starts with the goaltender and I thought we had some real good clears, shares and pucks that we could get down and get fresh players on the ice. That made a big difference.

On making line changes for the third period, including moving Byfield up with Kopitar and Kempe
The way the game rolled out and we knew it was going to happen, with all their injuries, they have a couple defenseman playing forward and they weren’t getting many minutes, so we thought it was going to be a three-line team. I thought some of our players looked a little sluggish and tired, we needed to get some fresh legs going. Q gave us a bit of a jump there and I thought that when Ras went into the middle, with his wingers, they gave us four or five real good shifts in the third. That allowed some of our other players to rest.

Notes –
– With tonight’s win, the Kings extended their point streak to seven games (6-0-1).
– The Kings snapped a nine-game losing streak against Colorado with tonight’s win. They won for the first time at Ball Arena since December 31, 2018.
– Alex Iafallo (1-1-2) recorded his second multi-point effort in as many games, marking just the second time in his career that he recorded consecutive multi-point games. He extended his point streak to five games (4-3-7) in the process.
– Phillip Danault extended his own point streak to six games with his second-period goal. Danault joins Sean Durzi (Nov. 25 – Dec. 6, 2022, 6 GP, 1-8-9) as the only other Kings skater to record a regular point streak of at least six games this season.
– Viktor Arvidsson (0-2-2) tallied two assists to give him five points in his last two games (1-4-5) and seven points (2-5-7) over his last five outings.
– Gabe Vilardi (1-0-1) scored his team-leading 16th goal of the year for his fourth point in last five games (3-1-4). His goal marked his 24th point of the season (16-8-24), surpassing his career-high for season scoring previously set in the 2020-21 campaign (10-13-23).
– Sean Walker (1-0-1) netted his second goal of the campaign, which was the game-tying goal to force the game into overtime.
– Sean Durzi skated in his 100th career NHL game this evening and tallied an assist in the victory. Durzi became the 11th defenseman from the 2018 NHL Draft class to reach such mark. Per NHL PR, among players to debut with the Kings in the past 20 seasons, only five had more points through the century mark: Anze Kopitar (90), Tyler Toffoli (54), Michael Cammalleri (53), Gabriel Vilardi (50) and Patrick O’Sullivan (48).
– Per NHL PR, the LA Kings overcame a two-goal deficit in the final frame for their third multi-goal, third-period comeback victory of the season, tied with the Islanders and Ducks for the most in 2022-23. That equals the highest single-season total in franchise history (also 3 in 2005-06 and 2007-08).

The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at noon at Toyota Sports Performance Center.