The LA Kings were victorious again in the penultimate preseason contest, as they skated to a 4-3 overtime victory over the San Jose Sharks on Thursday evening at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Kings opened the scoring in the first period, as Pierre-Luc Dubois and Kevin Fiala connected to open the scoring for the second straight game. Fiala showed high in support in the offensive zone and collected a pass from defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov. Fiala drew a defender to him and fed Dubois in the right-hand circle, where he wired a one timer past San Jose netminder MacKenzie Blackwood for his first exhibition goal as an LA King.
Late in the opening period, San Jose equalized through forward Alexander Barabanov. Sharks forward Mikael Granlund sent a shot towards the net from the center point, with Barabanov getting a high deflection from the slot to direct it past Kings netminder Pheonix Copley for a 1-1 score at the first intermission.
LA surged ahead once again through forward Anze Kopitar, taking a 2-1 lead midway through the second period. Defenseman Drew Doughty skated down the right wing and snapped a hard pass through the slot to Kopitar, who finished through the five hole at the back post for his first goal of the preseason, putting the Kings in the lead once again.
The Sharks came back to knot the score once again, through forward Mike Hoffman. San Jose forward Tomas Hertl took a shot that was kept out by Copley, but the rebound fell to Hoffman, charging at the back post, where he slotted home to tie the game at two.
Just over three minutes into the third period, forward Trevor Moore pulled the hosts back ahead, with all three members of the second forward line contributing on the goal. Phillip Danault worked the puck down behind the net to Viktor Arvidsson, who fed Moore in the low slot for a one-timer goal, his second of the preseason, giving the Kings a 3-2 advantage.
Once again, San Jose came back to tie the game inside the final six minutes of a period, this time through forward Thomas Bordeleau. The forward took the puck off the goal line, to Copley’s right, sent a hard pass into a dangerous area in front and it deflected off a skate and in for a 3-3 score.
With the game in overtime, forward Adrian Kempe skated through the slot, from the right-hand circle, and snapped home the game-winning goal from a bit of distance to give the Kings a 4-3 victory.
Hear from Kempe, Utah native Trevor Lewis and Todd McLellan following tonight’s game.
Trevor Lewis
Trevor Lewis discusses playing in his home state and wearing the 'A'@LAKings I #KingsLive pic.twitter.com/RKiL7RNucJ
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Adrian Kempe
On where he feels the team is at, with one preseason game remaining
I feel like we’re in a good spot. I think tonight maybe wasn’t our best game of the preseason. I think we tried to do good things, we had some lucky bounces and I think it wasn’t maybe the prettiest game to watch for for [either] team but I think we’re in a good spot. We have some practice and one more game to go to work on the last couple of things but I feel like all the lines and D are playing well. The flow is back in the game and you get that game ritual back and all that kind of stuff, which is nice.
On where he feels the power play is at, and if it’s getting close to where it needs to be
Yeah, I think so. I think we’re starting to figure out ourselves, maybe we didn’t have the best game tonight but I think we’re all on the same page. We’re all on the same page we were at, at the end of last year, when we were playing our best game on the power play, so I think it’s feeling pretty good. Maybe it didn’t look that great tonight, but I think we all are pretty confident.
On seeing a special night for Trevor Lewis, playing at home
I think he’s probably really excited to be here and I would too, if this was my hometown. You have so many family, friends and all that kind of stuff in there and everybody’s happy to see him back in LA and coming here and play these these games. I think we’re all excited for him.
Todd McLellan
On what he saw from his team tonight in the second-to-last preseason game
I’m glad it’s the second last one. It’s time for us to get going and play. Tough game to play in, quite frankly, it doesn’t compare to what we went through in Australia with the emotion or anything like that, but I thought we did some things well, I thought we did some things poorly. Again, we have some evidence, if you will, for us to work with the players. Now granted, some of the mistakes that we made, a lot of them were below the goal line, where the conditions weren’t real favorable for any type of puck movement, so I don’t know if that’s our execution or what we were dealing with.
On if veteran players had the option to play tonight, or if it was team-mandated
We didn’t give them that option, we brought them. Again, strange training camp. The first two games that we played, some individuals played back-to-back, Kopi only played one and that was a good two and a half weeks ago now. So, it’s almost like we’ve been through two training camps and we felt like everybody needed to play in this one. In hindsight, I think we’re better off bringing a bunch of younger players, young kids that are maybe more accustomed to this type of day, but both teams had to go through it. We’ll see if we have to do this again, we may adjust.
On Alex Laferriere’s game tonight, slotting in with the main group for the first time
Well, this has been the first time that we’ve been able to be on the actual bench with him and I think you learn a lot when you’re that close to him. The instincts he has on the ice fit our team real well. He has some physicality, we’ve talked about his pace of play, which has been real good. I think he’s got a lot of the tools that he needs and that we need of him to play in the National Hockey League. He may need a little more experience, just to to gain it and get the ice time that he needs, but I think he’s got a real bright future.
On giving Trevor Lewis the “A” tonight, playing in his home state
Absolutely. It was the human element. Trevor has been a real proud King for a lot of years, he had to go away and then came back and this is his home. He had a lot of people here, you don’t have to wear an “A” all the time to be a leader and he is that for us all the time, so it’s nice to recognize them. Nice of Phil Danault to be willing to give it up for a night, it’s just a sign of a pretty close team and those kinds of things can happen.
The Kings are scheduled to practice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.
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