FINAL – Kings 2, Sharks 4 – Danault, Thomas, Hiller

The Los Angeles Kings were unable to stretch their winning streak to three games, falling short in a 4-2 defeat against the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday evening at SAP Center in San Jose.

After a first period that saw a combined four power plays, but no goals, the Sharks opened the scoring early in the second period through defenseman Jake Walman.

After winning the faceoff in the offensive zone, San Jose moved the puck low to high and cashed in with the game’s first goal. Forward Nico Sturm won a puck battle off what was originally a stalemate draw, feeding defenseman Jake Walman at the left point. Walman walked to the middle of the ice, wound up and fired clean past Kings netminder David Rittich.

Just over 60 seconds later, the Kings answered, as forward Akil Thomas made an instant impact during his season debut to tie the game at one. After a good shift off the cycle, defenseman Brandt Clarke activated from the right point and got a good shot from the right-hand circle, with Sharks netminder Vitek Vanecek making the save. The rebound kicked high in the air, into the crease, where Thomas slammed it home for his first goal of the season.

Capitalizing off an odd-man rush, the Sharks pulled ahead for the second time in the game, this time courtesy of forward Fabian Zetterlund. Skating in 2-on-1, after a mistimed pinch in the neutral zone from defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov, Zetterlund kept the puck himself, picked his spot and snapped his shot past Rittich and in for his team-leading sixth goal of the season and a 2-1 lead for the hosts.

The Kings once again equalized in short order once again, as forward Alex Laferriere scored his team-leading fifth goal of the season to tie the game at two. Off what was perhaps the strongest shift of the period by the Kings, forward Warren Foegele forced a turnover below the goal line and found Laferriere in front, where he cashed in with a low shot, past Vanecek, for the second tie game of the night.

With just under nine minutes remaining in regulation, San Jose winger Tyler Toffoli scored against his former team, putting the Sharks back on top. After Jordan Spence’s clearing attempt was held in by defenseman Jake Walman at the left point, Walman found Toffoli in front, where he deked to the backhand and slotted home the go-ahead goal with 8:58 on the clock, a 3-2 advantage, which held up for the final score.

Hear from Thomas, forward Phillip Danault and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s game.

Phillip Danault

Akil Thomas
On if he felt the Kings underestimated San Jose tonight
I don’t think we underestimated them, I think we knew they were going to come out hard. I don’t think we had our best game, but I don’t think we underestimated them. I just think we weren’t our best and they played pretty good.

On a last-minute change from 4C to RW2
You know, that’s the way I’ve tried to describe myself, is being just a Swiss-army knife and to be able to address those situations. So, if anything, I was just trying to make sure, because I was preparing to play center. I was playing wing tonight and I just wanted to make sure I kind of knew what we were doing, wing-wise, off of draws and just everything like that. I think little adjustments right before the game, I asked DJ to do some video, so I did that and it was fine.

On scoring in his season debut
Yeah, for sure. Felt really good. You know, it was kind of weird playing the first time in a few weeks, so first period I didn’t really feel amazing, and I felt better as the shifts went on.

On coming up short tonight against a divisional rival
I think, for tomorrow, we definitely want to come out strong, we’re not happy though tonight. I think, on the other side, next time we play these guys, I’m sure we’re going to want to come out hard, because you remember this one, for sure.

Jim Hiller
On his takeaways from tonight’s game
We didn’t start at all, took two penalties in the first five minutes, got on our heels. Give them a ton of credit, they came and did what they do, came and worked, right? Second period, we got ourselves going a little bit and then third period, they made big plays when they needed to, and we made a couple of poor plays that direct(ly) result in goals.

On the team’s struggles on the power play tonight and where he’d place them
Start with giving them credit, but we had a couple looks, but just not crisp. The whole game we weren’t crisp, we didn’t make a lot of consecutive passes on the tape, skate, we didn’t have a lot of that going on. That probably led into the power play.

On lessons learned from tonight, with a stern back-to-back test tomorrow vs. Vegas
Better be ready to play from the start, from the start of the opening faceoff, I think that’s really the only lesson. Put it behind us, but we’ve got to make sure we’re ready from the start of the faceoff. You get two penalties in the first five minutes, you pretty much take probably six or seven guys right out of the game for 20 minutes or so, because they have to sit there, from the warmups some guys didn’t even get a shift. We can’t do that.

On Akil Thomas’ game tonight and how he adjusted to a last-minute change
He did good. I would have rather had him, after not playing for close to a month, play on the wing, rather than playing center, so that was probably better for him coming in, a little less responsibility, get your legs back under you. He did a good job. Scored again, scored his first goal of his career in this building here last year. Yeah, no issues there, he did a good job.

On changing up lines in the third period and if anything jumped out from that
No, I don’t think anything jumped out. We didn’t have a lot going on at 5-on-5 anyways, so that led to the change. I didn’t think that there was anything that really jumped out at us.

*Prior to the game, the Kings announced that forward Kevin Fiala would not play tonight due to “violating team protocol by missing a meeting.” Jim Hiller did not elaborate post-game beyond the statement, but did clarify that tonight’s decision was not related to Saturday, when Fiala did not take a shift for the final 24:05 in the 3-2 win over Utah.

Notes –
• Forward Akil Thomas (1-0=1) notched his first goal of the year in his season debut. Last season, Thomas scored his first career NHL goal at SAP Center; a tally which stood as the game-winner in a 2-1 victory over the Sharks on April 4.
• Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-1=1) collected his seventh assist of the season to take sole posession of the team lead in the category. Clarke now has four points over his last two games and has established a two-game point streak against the Sharks.
• Clarke joins Drew Doughty (12 in 2021-22 & 8 in 2017-18) and Jake Muzzin (9 in 2017-18) as the only Kings defensemen who have recorded eight or more points through their first 10 games of a campaign in the past 10 years.
• Forward Trevor Moore (0-1=1) picked up his second assist in as many matchups versus San Jose this season.
• Forward Anze Kopitar skated in his 1,383rd regular season game tonight, passing Trevor Linden (1,382 GP) for 47th-most appearances all-time.
• Forward Alex Laferriere (1-0=1) scored his team-leading fifth goal of the campaign and has now posted three points (1-2=3) in two games against San Jose.
• Forward Warren Foegele (0-1=1) picked up his first assist as a member of the Kings, his third point (2-1=3) against the Pacific Division rival Sharks in the past six days.
• With the assist, Foegele has now scored three points (2-1=3) in his last two games against the Sharks, and extends both his road assist streak against San Jose to a third game (0-3=3) and his point streak against San Jose to a fifth game (4-3=7), both dating back to Nov. 9, 2023 (with EDM).
• Tonight’s game marked the 178th all-time meeting between the two California-based franchises, giving the Kings more matchups against the Sharks than any other franchise in the League.

The Kings are back in action tomorrow evening, as they host the Vegas Golden Knights at 7 PM at Crypto.com Arena.