FINAL – Kings 1, Golden Knights 6 – Moore, Anderson, Hiller

The LA Kings concluded a season-opening, seven-game roadtrip with a 6-1 defeat against the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday evening at T-Mobile Arena.

The Golden Knights scored on each of their first two power plays, opening up a 2-0 lead in the first period.

First, forward Tomas Hertl worked his way to the net and after Kings goaltender David Rittich made a pair of saves, Hertl was able to elevate the puck on the rebound and find the back of the net for his second goal of the season. Later in the opening period, Vegas struck again in a 5-on-4 situation, with forward Mark Stone driving the net and deflecting a shot from the point, taken by Hertl, for a two-goal advantage.

Shortly after Stone’s goal, Vegas extended its advantage to 3-0 through forward Pavel Dorofeyev, taking a three-goal lead into the first intermission. Dorofeyev collected the puck inside the left-hand circle and although his shot was headed wide, it kicked off the shin pad of defenseman Brandt Clarke and into the net for his third goal of the season, with Hertl tallying his third assist of the game on the play.

Inside the final minute of play in the second period, the Kings finally got on the board through forward Warren Foegele. Off a faceoff win in the offensive zone, defenseman Jordan Spence fed his partner, Joel Edmundson, for a one-timer, which missed the net, but the rebound kicked directly to Foegele who scored from just outside the crease for his first goal as a member of the Kings.

Early in the third period, Vegas scored an early goal to restore its three-goal advantage. Defenseman Andreas Englund was unable to get the puck out of the zone, along the left-hand boards, with defenseman Alex Pietrangelo pinching and turning the puck over. Pietrangelo fed forward Alexander Holtz in the slot, with the Swede burying the puck first time for his first goal of the season and a 4-1 lead.

Vegas tacked on two additional goals in the latter stages of the third period, bringing the game to the final score of 6-1.

First, Hertl collected his second goal and fourth point of the evening. In a theme from the game defensively, the Golden Knights won the battle in front of the net, with Hertl getting a stick on the puck at the back post, finding the back of the net for a four-goal lead. Ivan Barbashev concluded the scoring on the evening as he found a soft spot in the slot, collected the centering feed from Mark Stone and buried his fifth goal of the season for the 6-1 final score.

Hear from defenseman Mikey Anderson, forward Trevor Moore and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s defeat in Vegas.

Trevor Moore

Mikey Anderson
On a disappointing loss tonight
Yeah, it just wasn’t our night, but we’ll get home, get a day off tomorrow and we’ll regroup and come back ready to go.

On Vegas winning the battles in front of the net throughout the game
They’re really good in front of their own net, for one, I think we had chances and they just ended up getting a stick on it or making a save. And on the flip side, they’ve got some big bodies up front that found a way to get touches on pucks, make a couple plays and score it. I think that didn’t help us, obviously, as we could have used a few to go our way, but something we can learn from, compare it to the other two and see what we need to fix.

On the breakdowns tonight on the penalty kill
I think we were trying to do the right things, maybe just not as tight as we were the last couple games. You give up one, you might tighten up a little bit, get loose. We can watch it, figure it out. They obviously had a plan of what they wanted to do, too, so tip your hat to them, but I think as a kill, no one was happy with it. We know we’ve got to be better.

On not dictating matchups with 7 straight road games, and finally heading home
That’s part of the way the game is, you get the advantage of being home. We just go out and play, but coaches can try and do what they think is best to help the team, put certain guys against their guys. So, on the road it gets tough, just because you’ve got to throw them out and try and pick it up on the fly. Obviously everyone loves being at home, you get the fans you get last change, a lot of benefits you can get from it.

Jim Hiller
On not being able to follow up 2 strong defensive games tonight
We started the game all right and we broke down a couple times on the penalty kill. I think that really took some momentum away. The puck found a way to land on their stick a few times, we were not strong enough in front of our net. I don’t know that there was a lot of breakdowns, outside of we let our guy go and he tapped one in from six inches. Funny game. We got our chances. It wasn’t a a 6-1 game, but that’s what the scoreboard reads and we have to accept it.

On allowing two power-play goals in the first period, setting the team back early
We had a meeting, that first one, they got a break away early, got us on our toes. We had had a meeting, we knew what they were going to do. They executed, we did not. Then there were a couple others, one tipped off, I think Hertl’s stick and then went over and tipped off Stone’s stick. Those are pretty good players, to be able to knock the puck out of there on the double tap like that. So, some of them, you can’t do anything about, you just tip your hat to them.

On if there is a growing concern in being able to defend against higher-skilled teams
No, I mean, it’s a fair comment, but I don’t know that there’s a theme there yet or not. Those teams have good offensive players and they can burn you if give them the opportunity. I thought they were pretty opportunistic on their chances. I don’t know how many chances they had, but they’re good shooters, they made good plays and they finished when they had to, there’s no question. Not much we can do about it now, take a rest and go home.

On Warren Foegele’s game tonight
Yeah, his best game for sure. I mean, just that line, they continue to play pretty well, all three of them together, they’re dangerous, hungry, tenacious and I think there’s probably some guys on our team that could probably, as they’re sitting on the bench watching, take a page out of their notebook, because I think we’re lacking that with some of our players.

On his takeaways as a whole from the seven-game trip
Well, I think if you look at it, you would say if you can come out of that .500, you’re probably not doing too bad, but it’s always disappointing. We had a chance tonight to really have a great trip, really, [it would have been] 4-1-2. We don’t, but we’ll take the record. There was a lot of positive stuff, there a few things, tonight, we’ve seen that we have to do better. If you don’t do it better, you lose on the road. All-in-all, we’ll accept it and move forward.

Notes –
• Tonight marked the 33rd all-time meeting between the Kings and Golden Knights, the most matchups against Vegas of any franchise in the League.
• Forward Warren Foegele (1-0=1) scored his first goal of the season for his first tally since joining the Kings this past offseason.
• Defenseman Jordan Spence (0-1=1) collected his third helper of the season while Joel Edmundson (0-1=1) notched his second assist of the campaign.
• Goaltender David Rittich turned aside 24 of the Golden Knights’ 30 shots on goal in the Kings’ final game of their season-long seven-game road trip. Rittich appeared in his 200th career NHL game tonight, becoming the eighth Czech-born goaltender in NHL history to do so, the first since Petr Mrazek (Jan. 3, 2019 at PHI, with CAR).

Tomorrow is a scheduled team day off for the Kings. The team will return to the ice on Thursday, October 24 at 10:30 AM for morning skate in advance of that evening’s game versus the San Jose Sharks, the first game of the season on home ice.