Kings center Anze Kopitar hauled in a pass from Vladislav Gavrikov as he came out from behind the net and saw Adrian Kempe streaking down the right side. He threaded the needle between two Ducks defenders to feed Kempe, who got the puck past Lukas Dostal for the first goal of the game early in the third period.
“When you see that [someone] has the puck on the tape with time and I feel like I have a D-Man on me that I can beat, I’ll just take off,” Kempe said about his goal. “And those guys know that. They’ve found me so many times before.”
Kempe’s goal on Sunday marked his 15th against the Ducks in his career, the most that any NHL player has scored against them since 2020.
Five minutes later, Alex Laferriere picked off a Ducks pass and added a second goal — ultimately the deciding one — to all but seal a 4-1 win for the Kings over their archrivals in the first Freeway Face-Off this season.
“The nice part about the last goal was that [Alex Turcotte] was hunting their defenseman down, and so he was forced to make a play maybe sooner than he wanted to,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “So there’s two guys in on that one. Laf gets the goal, Turk doesn’t get an assist there, but it was equally important.”
Despite a slow start in the first period, the Kings eventually settled in and dominated the game offensively, with 37 shots on goal. They won 62.3% of their face-offs. Defensively, they limited the Ducks to just 15 shots on goal with David Rittich netting 14 saves, to go along with 11 blocked shots and eight takeaways.
Hiller was also pleased with his team’s discipline in the penalty kill as they prevented the Ducks from scoring in any of their three power plays, an area that he acknowledges they’ve grown in since the preseason.
“There are times and certain scenarios when we’ve been a little bit more passive and waited for a trigger to pressure, whereas earlier, we were kind of pressuring everywhere,” Hiller said. “So I thought there were a couple of times tonight where we backed off, waited for a trigger, and then went again. So you know, they did a good job.
“I think we’re starting to understand that more and more. It’s an important part of the game obviously, because it can really frustrate the other team. We’ve been on the other side of that at times, too.”
The Kings, who were coming off a 4-1 victory in Montreal, have won two in a row after dropping their previous three. They have yet to play a home game in either the regular season or preseason, as ongoing renovations at Crypto.com Arena pushed their home opener to Thursday.
With the Honda Center only 31 miles away from the Kings’ home ice, this game was the first time the players have been able to spend time at home all season. It means guys such as defenseman Joel Edmundson, a recent father, get to relish every moment.
“Not much sleep the past couple days, but the wife let me sleep in my own room last night, so [I] felt pretty good today,” Edmundson said.
They’ll have to get through one more road game — Tuesday in Las Vegas — before they host the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
