FINAL – Kings 6, Golden Knights 3 – Fiala, Kopitar, Kempe, Hiller

The Los Angeles Kings put in perhaps their strongest performance of the season, as they defeated the Vegas Golden Knights by a 6-3 final on Wednesday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

After a back and forth start, forward Warren Foegele created a goal through hard work on the forecheck, opening the scoring for the hosts. Forward Quinton Byfield’s stretch pass went the length of the ice, but with Vegas netminder Ilya Samsonov playing the puck, Foegele forced a turnover and shot through the five hole for his fourth goal of the season and an early 1-0 advantage.

Just 42 seconds later, forward Adrian Kempe doubled the lead with a trademark Kempe goal. Kempe weaved his way down the right wing with possession, ultimately gaining the offensive zone with speed. He cut his way into the slot, with the puck on his forehand and snapped a shot past Samsonov for the goal, putting the Kings ahead by a pair heading into the second intermission.

After a suffocating shift in the offensive zone, midway through the second period, forward Alex Laferriere scored his team-leading sixth goal of the season to put the Kings ahead 3-0. Strong puck movement saw the Kings control the play in the offensive end, before defenseman Mikey Anderson found Laferriere in the slot, where he beat Samsonov clean with a wrist shot to extend the lead to three goals.

Again, less than 60 seconds later, the Kings scored again, as forward Anze Kopitar buried his fourth goal of the season, off a dazzling assist from defenseman Brandt Clarke. Activating in from the left point, Clarke pulled a spin move past Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo before he calmly fed Kopitar for the tap-in goal at the back post, as the hosts took a 4-0 lead.

Late in the second period, Vegas got on the board through former Kings forward Tanner Pearson, pulling back to within three goals through 40 minutes of play. Byfield lost possession below the goal line and the Golden Knights capitalized quickly, with forward Alexander Holtz feeding Pearson in the slot, where he got his team on the board with a wrist shot, taking the game into the second intermission at 4-1.

Early in the third period, the Kings capitalized on their first power play of the game, as they opened up a 5-1 advantage. Checking back into the lineup, forward Kevin Fiala converted off the rush, as he dragged the puck around a defenseman onto his forehand and placed his shot past Samsonov from the left-hand circle, burying his fifth goal of the season for a four-goal advantage.

Midway through the third period, defenseman Joel Edmundson continued his hot hand, as he made it six goals on the evening for the Kings. Edmundson’s shot from the point found its way through traffic and in, giving him three goals over his last three games.

Vegas scored twice in the latter stages of the third period, bringing the final score to 6-3.

Hear from Kopitar, Kempe, Fiala and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s game.

Kevin Fiala

Anze Kopitar
On getting the chance to bounce back right away after last night’s loss in San Jose
You don’t want to sit on that one for too long. I mean, not ideal, landing at midnight and getting ready for the game, but I think that is the best, just to get going again and forget about San Jose.

On if he felt tonight was the most complete 60 minutes the Kings have played this season
Yeah, it certainly felt that way. You know, playing and being on the bench watching, yeah. I’ll take a few more of those to feel good.

On Alex Turcotte joining his line and the night the three of them had together
Personally, and I was talking to Adrian too, I think that was probably the best game we’ve played. It’s not because of the other guys or anything, I think we just, we were able to make plays and Turc, with his speed, he made a couple of really nice plays too. Things started clicking, so it was nice to see, but we’re going to continue to build on that.

On Adrian Kempe having a prototypical Adrian Kempe night
When he’s feeling like that, you give him the puck and just kind of bring up the rear and then that’s about it. Obviously it’s nice to see, both of us getting on the scoresheet too, but as a group and as a line, we’re going to have to continue doing that.

Adrian Kempe
On if he agreed with Kopitar that tonight was the best 60 minutes of the season
I thought it was good. We felt like we were playing again, I think we’re making more plays, the forecheck was good, everything kind of clicked tonight. Overall, I think we played with the puck more, I think we made some good plays that we feel like we maybe haven’t as much so far this season. So, I think it was a good 60 for the entire team.

On the importance of coming out that way after a bad showing yesterday
Yeah, it was important for sure. I think everybody was a little pissed off after last night, obviously you know a game that we would like to get back and play over again, especially with how we played tonight. Consistency is something that we’re going to have to bring a little more often and be something that we have to be prepared for, both mentally and physically before every game. I think it was a good bounce back tonight, we showed that earlier in season, after the Toronto game too, we bounced back in Montreal the night after. On the other side of it, I think we’ve just got to keep building on this. Obviously we can’t have nights like last night off, against any team. S good bounce back tonight, so that was good before a day off here.

On having perhaps his most impactful game, individually of the season
I thought we played with the puck way more, I thought we were connected from the backend all the way to the forwards. I felt like we haven’t been that in the last couple of games and we’ve all got to work together to get it going and to play well. So, I think everybody from Darcy all the way up to the forwards were really connected today on the breakouts, all that kind of stuff. When you do that, you know, you get more confidence when you play out there. When you play without confidence, it’s tough, whether you have the puck or whether you don’t have the puck, you feel like you make mistakes pretty easily. Like we played tonight, with a lot of confidence, every line, I think it feels good when you have the puck and you make the right plays and then the puck eventually goes in, too.

Jim Hiller
On getting the right type of response game from his team
We’ve been pretty good at that. Wish there didn’t have to be a response game, but we’ve been pretty good, I will give our players credit, we’ve been pretty good at bouncing back from a game that we just really didn’t think we played well. I’d like to eliminate that game, we just didn’t really play well, but full credit to the team for coming back, on a back to back and not feeling very good well last night.

On if he had to “lean into” the team tonight, after yesterday’s performance
We had to lean into them, we had to challenge the, because Vegas is a great team, playing as well as they had. Just didn’t feel good last night for lots of different reasons and we had to have a response, and we did. I also thought we moved the puck pretty well, we scored some nice goals, it just felt like, through working, we were able to really move the puck, really make some nice passing plays, which we’ve struggled a little bit so far, frankly, this year. So, it was good to see some guys moving the puck like that.

On Kevin Fiala’s performance tonight, after his last 48 hours
There was nothing malicious about anything Kevin did. Kevin is a team guy. He wants the team to have success. Sometimes he has problems controlling his emotions and can take penalties, but it’s nothing that he is doing purposefully, that I understand. Kind of a freak thing that happened with him in San Jose, so there’s nothing there. He came back and he’s a good teammate. You want him to get out there and work and he did. I was happy to see him rewarded with a couple of points.

On the top line tonight, with Turcotte alongside Kopitar/Kempe
Well, I thought that was probably their best game, Juice and Kopi. I know Kopi had the three in Buffalo, but as a line, I thought that was their best night, and I thought they were ready to play right away, you could see it. I mean, Kempe had two shots I think the first couple shifts, dangerous speed, but I thought Turc did exactly what we hoped he would do. He really complimented them, he buzzed, he drove through the middle on Kempe’s goal, drew the defenseman, he forechecked. He was really good. It was exactly what they needed for tonight.

On younger players like Brandt Clarke and Alex Laferriere stepping up early this season
I’ll lump all our younger players into that, because it is more than those two. I know they have some points. It’s been a real boost for us, because our veteran players, our scorers, haven’t got off to the start that they’ve wanted to, that’s clear and those guys have kind of held it together for us as those guys start to get going, which I hope tonight is the springboard for that. But you need to find some goals in somewhere and Laf with his goal total, Clarke’s made some pretty good plays to get some points and we saw the one tonight. The thing about assists is sometimes you can get some ones that really don’t have much of an effect on the play. Goals, you’ve got to score the goal, somebody’s got to put in the back of the net. So, sometimes assists can be a little bit misleading, but riding relied on them both quite a bit this year for scoring.

On Quinton Byfield moving back to the middle
We’ve talked about this a lot with everybody, Quinton is a center, even though he went back and played the wing and he might go back and play the wing at some other time again this year, just because we need flexibility different times, but he’s a center. He’s going to be a center for a long time and I think that’s where he contributes most, and I think that’s where he’ll see the most growth as a player.

Notes –
• Captain Anze Kopitar (1-2=3) picked up his seventh and eighth assists of the season. The assists marked his 799th and 800th career helpers, making Kopitar the 35th skater––the fifth born and trained outside of North America and fourth active player––to record 800 career assists. Kopitar’s three points tonight marked his third three-point effort of the season and his 10th career multi-point game against the Vegas Golden Knights, breaking a tie with Kyle Connor, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl for the most in league history.
• With his second period tally standing as the game-winner, Kopitar scored the 73rd deciding goal of his career, tying Luc Robitaille for the most game-winning goals in franchise history.
• Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-3=3) picked up his team-leading eighth, ninth, and 10th assists of the season. Clarke extends his point streak to four games (1-6=7).
• With Clarke’s three-point effort tonight, he has scored 11 points through the team’s first 11 games of the season. Clarke becomes the third defenseman in King’s history aged 21 years old or younger to record 11 points through the team’s first 11 games to start a season, joining Larry Murphy (2x, 4-7=11 in 1980-81 and 5-8=13 in 1981-82) and Rob Blake (2-11=13 in 1990-91).
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-1=2) scored his fourth goal and tallied his sixth assist of the season. Kempe has now scored seven points (2-5=7) in his last six games against Vegas, dating back to April 6, 2023. With his pair of points, Kempe records his team-leading fourth multi-point game this season.
• Forward Kevin Fiala (1-1=2) recorded his fifth goal and third assist of the season to mark the 65th game of his career with at least one goal and one assist.
• Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-2=2) tallied his third and fourth assists of the season, the 50th and 51st of his career. Anderson becomes the eighth American defenseman to reach 50 assists with the Kings.
• Defenseman Joel Edmundson (1-0=1) scored his third goal of the season, his third goal over his last two home games.
• Forward Warren Foegele (1-0=1) scored his fourth goal of the season. Foegele has now picked up five points over his last five games.
• Forward Alex Laferriere (1-0=1) scored his sixth goal of the season, his second in as many days. The 23-year-old forward has scored in back-to-back games for the second time in his career, with the previous two-game goal streak (2-0=2) occuring from Oct. 17 and Oct. 20.
• Forward Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) notched his fifth assist of the season.
• Forward Phillip Danault skated in his 250th career games with the Kings, becoming the 13th Quebec-born skater in franchise history to do so.
• Goaltender Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 of Vegas’ 26 shots on goal to improve his record to 3-0-2 on the campaign.

The Kings have a scheduled team off day tomorrow, following back-to-back games. The team will return to the ice on Saturday, November 2 at 1 PM against the Chicago Blackhawks.