FINAL – Kings 7, Flyers 3 – Foegele, Danault, Hiller

The LA Kings improved their record to 3-1-1 on their current roadtrip, following a 7-3 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday evening at Wells Fargo Center.

The Kings opened the scoring as their most dangerous line in the early goings got the visitors on the board. Forward Phillip Danault hit a speeding Kevin Fiala down the middle of the ice, with the Swiss winger gaining a step in behind the Philadelphia defense. Fiala calmly deked to the backhand, working through a hook from the back, and finishing for the game’s first goal, his 11th of the season.

Philadelphia came back to tie the game with a backhanded goal of its own later in the period. Working in the offensive zone, Bobby Brink drew a crowd to him on the boards, but was able to get a pass to Cates, coming down through the slot. Cates deked to the backhand and lifted his shot over the pad of Kings netminder Darcy Kuemper for the goal, equalizing for the hosts.

Just 91 seconds into the second period, the Kings pulled ahead for the second time in the game, courtesy of forward Tanner Jeannot. Forward Warren Foegele got the puck into a dangerous area in the crease and following a scramble, Jeannot got the goal to go from close range, putting the visitors back on top, this time by a 2-1 margin.

Forward Tyson Foerster scored twice later in the second period, turning a 2-1 Kings lead into a 3-2 deficit.

First, shortly after the Kings had the first power play of the game, defensemen Jordan Spence was unable to keep the offensive zone, leading to a 2-on-1 the other way. Kuemper nearly kept the puck out, but after a wraparound later in the sequence, Foerster scored from just outside the crease, tying the game at two.

He then made it 3-2 Flyers shortly after Philadelphia had their first man advantage. Foerster shook loose in front of the net and, when left uncovered, finished a centering feed from forward Morgan Frost for his second goal of the evening, his eighth of the season, giving the hosts their first lead of the game.

Inside the final minute of the second period, the Kings found a way to tie the game, as captain Anze Kopitar worked the puck across the goal line for the equalizer. After winning the faceoff and working the puck back to the point, Kopitar went to the net and got just enough on the rebound to guide it across the line, past Flyers goaltender Aleksei Kolosov and in for the game-tying goal.

The visitors again struck early in a period, this time the third frame, to take their third one-goal lead of the evening. Spence got a shot through from the right point that first deflected off a Flyer defenseman before forward Warren Foegele got a piece, sending it into the back of the net for his ninth goal of the season, as the Kings pulled ahead 4-3.

Kopitar doubled the lead midway through the third period, scoring again from right around the netfront. This time, it was Alex Turcotte who made the play happen, as he drove to the outside with speed and perfectly weighted a saucer pass through the top of the crease to Kopitar at the back post, where he buried his tenth goal of the season, making it 19 straight seasons with double-digit goals for the captain.

Forward Quinton Byfield made it 6-3 with an empty-net goal, before Kevin Fiala capped off the scoring with his second of the game, off a nice assist from forward Alex Laferriere, bringing us to the 7-3 final.

Hear from Danault, Foegele and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s win.

Warren Foegele

Phillip Danault
On if tonight’s win was just about finding a way to get the job done
Yeah, we didn’t play our game. They found a way to play theirs, up and down the ice a lot, a lot of 2-on-1’s and stuff like that. We just played our Kings game in the third and we got rewarded.

On the discussion in the second intermission and what changed.
Yeah, just get back to our game. We didn’t play it for the first two periods and we got our result right there at the end. We addressed it at the second intermission and we all took care of it and we all responded. It was a great team win and Darce was solid in net as well.

On his line finding two goals tonight and getting the reward they’ve deserved
It’s been that kind of year. Grinding, have some good looks and it doesn’t go in easy. Nice to get rewarded tonight from where we were.

On the importance of getting the two points tonight, late in a road trip
Huge. You could feel they had lots of momentum, they were hungry, they were playing hard but we just found a way

Jim Hiller
On his biggest takeaways from tonight’s victory
Two things. The two takeaways I have is Kopitar’s goal at the end of the second period, very big goal for us, because we had lost all of our momentum, so that was a big turning point in the game. Then, the third period, which we gave up a lead in Pittsburgh, we were happy with. We’ve been playing so well in the thirds and tonight, I thought our third period, obviously, was our best. Nevermind the goals, but we played the game hard, we checked, we limited the turnovers, odd-mans, obviously. So I was really happy with the third.

On getting two big goals from Anze Kopitar, helping to spark the victory
To be his age and to be to be out there playing against the other team’s best players night after night, and then making an offensive contribution too, while leading the team, I don’t know, that’s really, really difficult to do. I know that’s difficult to do it 25, never mind at 37.

On what changed for the team between the first 40 minutes and the final 20
We don’t want to get into specifics, but I just think we started the game, maybe the first 10 minutes, playing our game, what we call Kings hockey, and then it was just a matter of whose game were we going to play in the third period and I thought we played our game. Again, really happy and proud of the guys to be able to come out that way in the third and play our game.

On seeing the Danault line get rewarded tonight for their play of late
Yeah, two really nice goals. I think that line now, for a little while, has been pretty good. I don’t think they’ve scored as much, relative to the chances they’ve had, but they’ve just played good hockey. I think they’ve probably been the most consistent line on the road trip. Yeah, nice to see the puck go in for Kevin, we know how many breakaways he’s had this year, and what a play by Laf at the end, behind the back. It’s good, yeah, it was just good to see some guys scoring some goals.

On an appreciation for Tanner Jeannot’s physical brand of hockey
He scored a big goal at the netfront too. I thought shot blocks from him, just the meat and potatoes part of the game, blocking shots, getting pucks out, finishing checks and having a presence after the whistle when it was required. All of those things are what make him a very unique player in the league and why we’re happy to have him.

Notes –
• Captain Anze Kopitar (2-0=2) extended his point streak to a third game with his pair of goals tonight and increased his team-leading point total to 37 on the campaign (10-27=37).
• Kopitar has now found the back of the net 64 times since turning age 35 on Aug. 22, 2022, tying Bob Nevin (64-113—177) for the most by a player age 35 or older in Kings history, per NHL PR.
• Forward Kevin Fiala (2-0=2) opened and closed the scoring tonight with his second and third goals of the road-trip, his 11th and 12th tallies of the season. Fiala has now recorded multiple points in a game 47 times since making his debut with the Kings on Oct. 11, 2022, the third most on the team behind Kopitar (50) and Adrian Kempe (50) in that span.
• Per NHL PR, the only Swiss-born players to register more multi-goal games than Fiala (24) are Nino Niederreiter (30) and Timo Meier (27).
• Forward Warren Foegele (1-1=2) registered his ninth goal and eighth assist of the season tonight at Wells Fargo Center and has four points (2-2=4) in his last three games. Tonight’s contest marked Foegele’s fifth multi-point game of the campaign, the most that the 28-year-old winger has registered through this point of a season in his career.
• Forward Tanner Jeannot (1-0=1) jammed home his fourth goal of the season. In six career games against the Flyers, Jeannot has recorded six points (3-3=6), including a game-winning goal, and two fifights.
• Forward Quinton Byfield (1-0=1) extended his point-streak against the Flyers to a fourth consecutive games (1-5=6), dating back to Jan. 24, 2023.
• Defenseman Jordan Spence (0-2=2) recorded his second and third assists over the past three days in the Keystone State, his seventh helper on the campaign.
• Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov (0-2=2) recorded a pair of assists tonight, the same stat line he posted on Tuesday in Pittsburgh. With his duo of performances, the blueliner establishes the fifirst multi-point game streak of his career (0-4=4).
• Forward Alex Laferriere (0-2=2) picked up a pair of helpers at Wells Fargo Center and now has three points (0-3=3) in as many career contests against Philadelphia.
• Defenseman Jacob Moverare (0-1=1) recorded an assist on Foegele’s game-winning tally to register his first point of the season in his 14th game played.
• Forward Alex Turcotte (0-1=1) extended his point streak to a third game (2-2=4) with his fififth point of the road trip.
• Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-1=1) tied Kempe for the second most assists on the team by notching his 15th of the campaign tonight.
• Forward Philip Danault (0-1=1) picked up his third point (1-2=3) in his last four games. Danault now has 10 assists in 18 career contests against the Flyers, the second Kings forward to have a double-digit number of helpers against Philadelphia after Kopitar (12A).
• Defenseman Mikey Anderson played his 300th career NHL game tonight against the Flyers. Drafted in the fourth round (103rd overall) in the 2017 NHL Draft, Anderson is the sixth defenseman from his draft class to reach the 300-game mark, the 19th skater from his cohort to do so overall.
• Goaltender Darcy Kuemper stopped 23 shots tonight to improve his record to 8-2-4 on the season.
• Per NHL PR, the Kings registered their 19th regulation win and tied Winnipeg for the second most this season. New Jersey (20) is the only team with more.

The Kings are not scheduled to hold an on-ice practice tomorrow. The team will return to the ice on Saturday, December 21 at 12:30 PM local time, 10:30 AM Pacific against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena.