FINAL – Kings 2, Canucks 3 (OT) – Spence, Kempe, Hiller

The LA Kings collected a point for the seventh consecutive game, as they came from behind to force overtime but could not complete the comeback, in a 3-2 overtime defeat against Vancouver on Wednesday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

Vancouver scored the lone goal from the opening period, as they took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission. After the Canucks won a faceoff in their own zone, defenseman Derek Forbort sprung forward Nils Hoglander with a stretch pass, leading to a 2-on-2 rush. Hoglander crossed over onto his forehand and snapped his shot past Kings goaltender David Rittich for his fifth goal of the season and a 1-0 lead.

The Canucks doubled their advantage in the second period, converting on the power play to take a 2-0 lead after 40 minutes of play. A sequence of passes along the wall and below the goal line saw forward Filip Chytil find forward Conor Garland in front of the net uncovered. The Vancouver winger scored from close range for his 15th goal of the season, which put the visitors ahead by a pair.

Midway through the third period, the Kings got on the board through Adrian Kempe, who brought the hosts within 2-1. After he took a touch pass from defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov through the neutral zone, Kempe weaved his way across the blueline and into the slot, where he let go a pinpoint wrist shot from in between the circles, which beat Vancouver netminder Kevin Lankinen on the glove side for Kempe’s team-leading 26th goal of the season.

With just shy of six minutes to play in regulation, the Kings pulled level as forward Warren Foegele found the back of the net for the second straight game. After some nice work from defensemen Jacob Moverare and Jordan Spence, the latter’s shot towards the net was deflected by Foegele and in on the way, tying the game at two. Vancouver challenged for goaltender interference but was unsuccessful, with the goal standing for the Kings.

Both teams collected a point, as the game progressed into overtime. The Kings had an early opportunity to win the game, with a 4-on-3 power play chance, but were unable to capitalize. With just 34 seconds on the clock, Canucks forward Conor Garland won the game for Vancouver, as he beat Rittich from the left-hand circle for the 3-2 victory and the second point in the standings.

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

Jordan Spence

Adrian Kempe
On the turnaround in the game between the first 40 minutes and the third period
Yeah, I mean every game isn’t going to be perfect. I think the first and second periods were okay, not more than that. Then the third, I think we just got more pucks to the net, everybody was more hungry, more physical and then we got some chances and scored on them. Good last period, I think. Obviously tough losing a game we definitely should have won with a 4-on-3 in OT as well.

On the defensive start to the game
They really came into play, I think they were hard, they were physical early on. I think we weren’t as physical and hard as they were in the first period. I think we got better as the game went along. I think second period was a little bit better, we started showing up a little bit more, but third period was good. They’re big team, they have big, physical D, hard to get around them, hard to get through the net. They played a solid game tonight.

On the spark it gave him and the group as he moved with Fiala and Byfield
Sometimes it’s good to change things up, maybe when it’s not going the way [you want], get some more momentum. Excited to play with some new guys every now and then. They’re both really skilled, they work really hard, got all the tools, so I just try to do my part, basically the same thing. Try to work as hard as I can, lots of talk out there, making some good plays and got rewarded. Had some good chances over the last couple of games with them so that’s a good thing to have in the back of the pocket, especially in games when you’re down going into the third period, that we can go to lines like that and create some offense.

On the potential of moving with Fiala and Byfield more regularly at this point in the season
I’ve played with Kopi for so long and [we’ve] just had a little bit of a drought for a couple weeks here, so I think it’s good sometimes to change things up. Like I said, you get a little excited sometimes to play with some different guys and I think it’s good for both of us. I’m sure we’ll get back together, just like it happened previous seasons. Last year we had a couple games where we didn’t play together and then they put us back together and then we’re scoring again. Sometimes, I think it’s good to change things up for sure.

Jim Hiller
On his takeaways from tonight’s game
I didn’t think we were great. I thought we had some guys going pretty good early, I thought Jeannot was going good, he showed up, he was physical right away. He jumped out at me, played with a lot of intensity. Give Vancouver credit, played really hard and they don’t give you much anyways. We just weren’t sharp. Even our third period, I didn’t think we were sharp, we still weren’t sharp. We scored, it’s great to see, and we played much better, but I still think we weren’t sharp. Passes on the tape, the power play and all that kind of stuff. Those are examples for me of where we just weren’t crisp.

On going back to the Fiala/Byfield/Kempe line again tonight for a spark
We’ll consider it for sure. I mean, they’ve been pretty effective in relatively small minutes together. Tonight’s, Juice, it was kind of was him and Gavy and a solo show by Juice, it wasn’t necessarily the line, but I thought that Kopi, Laf and Turc were pretty dangerous too. I guess the whole team was more dangerous in the third period, so everybody kind of pushed a little bit more, but yeah, that’s something we’ll have to talk about for sure.

On if not having Doughty available after the way he came back from 4 Nations had a negative impact on the team
Yeah, I think that’s a fair comment. We felt pretty good with him, he did a great job at the tournament, was back, was playing well. It’s like, okay, we got a little momentum here with this team, this lineup, so I think to have him go out, we missed him and probably more so because of the circumstances that he’s missed most of the year.

On the decision to start David Rittich tonight and his performance
I thought he was just okay. Dave played really well on the back-to-back prior to the break and then hadn’t played a long time, right, break, and he’s going to play one of the two this weekend, so we didn’t want him to have to wait three weeks in between starts. We wanted to make sure we got him a start before that.

On the team’s overall play in the three games since the break and it not being, overall, at the level it was before
I don’t disagree with that at all. I would’ve like to seen us really come out and play a full 60 and go and we didn’t, there’s no question. We’ve got probably pretty good results. Probably tonight, we could’ve have got two and probably the other nights, maybe we didn’t deserve two. Maybe we could’ve got one or zero, you know what I mean. The results, you hope that they balance themselves a little bit, so the sting is probably a little bit less because of what we probably deserved, the other games, I’m not so sure. So we’ve got to play better, I agree.

Defenseman Drew Doughty missed tonight’s game with a lower-body injury. He is considered day-to-day and will travel with the team to Dallas tomorrow.

• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) scored his 26th goal of the season, his fourth goal over his last four games against Vancouver dating back to April 6, 2024, and his seventh point (4-3=7) over his last five games against the Canucks, dating back to March 25, 2024.
• Forward Warren Foegele (1-0=1) scored his 16th goal of the campaign, extending his point streak to seven (4-3=7) in his last six games against the Canucks. Foegele also takes possession of third in goals on the team behind Fiala’s 23 and Kempe’s 26 tallies.
• Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov (0-1=1) tallied his 17th assist of the season, reaching the 20-point plateau (3-17=20) for the third time in his career. He now sits only two assists from 100 in his career.
• Forward Quinton Byfield (0-1=1) recorded his 23rd assist of the season and is now tied with Adrian Kempe for third most assists this season. Per NHL PR, the helper marked Byfield’s 11th assist of the month and passed Aleksander Barkov for sole possession of the most among all skaters in February.
• Defenseman Jordan Spence (0-1=1) notched his 17th assist of the season, reaching the 20-point mark (3-17=20) for the second consecutive season. With the assist, Spence extends his assist streak to a career-best third game (0-3=3), dating back to Feb. 22, 2025. It is Spence’s second career three-game point streak, previously achieving the feat earlier this season (1-2=3; Jan. 18 – 22, 2025).
• Defenseman Jacob Moverare (0-1=1) picked up his fifth assist of the season for his first career point against the Vancouver Canucks.
• Captain Anze Kopitar picked up a pair of blocked shots tonight, bringing his career total to 1,008, officially passing Ryan Getzlaf (1,006 BkS) for sole-possession of the second most blocks by a forward in League history since the stat has been tracked beginning in the 2007-08 season. The center trails only Joe Pavelski for the most blocked shots in League history (1,139).
• Forward Trevor Lewis played in his 800th game as a member of the Kings tonight, becoming the eight skater and second American-born skater to play in as many regular season games for the team, joining Dustin Brown (1,296 GP).

The Kings will not practice tomorrow, as they are set to travel to Dallas in the morning. The team will return to the ice on Friday, February 28 for morning skate in Texas.