LOS ANGELES –– El Día de los Muertos made an old rivalry rise from the dead as the Kings lost to the Chicago Blackhawks, their arch nemeses of the 2010s, 4-3 in a shootout that capped an unexpected thriller at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday afternoon.
The Kings had won five of their past seven tilts, including all three prior games at home this season, while Chicago had the NHL’s worst points percentage entering the clash. Six of the last 11 meetings between these clubs have now gone to overtime.
Alex Laferriere lit the lamp twice and Phillip Danault also tallied for the Kings. Laferriere’s eight goals are as many as captain Anže Kopitar and two-time team goals leader Adrian Kempe have combined. Kevin Fiala tacked on two assists. Darcy Kuemper stopped 18 of 21 shots but none in the shootout.
Nick Foligno, Craig Smith and Tyler Bertuzzi each scored a goal for Chicago. Petr Mrázek shouldered nearly twice the load of Kuemper, making 37 of 40 saves.
Though the dynamics and details differed a bit, this belly flop bore similarities to the Kings’ nosedive in San Jose on Tuesday, when they also let a weaker opponent get the better of them in the third period of an upset loss.
“The last couple games where we’ve had the lead, we’ve gotten away from our game a little bit and let those teams creep back in,” Laferriere said.
Overtime gave way to a shootout, where Kempe and Trevor Moore both scored for the Kings, but Chicago converted on all three attempts with Connor Bedard, Teuvo Teräväinen and Ryan Donato connecting.
A mere 30.3 seconds showed on the clock in regulation when, with Mrázek pulled for the extra attacker, Chicago knotted the score and effectively forced the extra frame.
Kuemper attempted to clear the puck but, after a touch by Bedard, it was kept in at the blue line by Seth Jones. His hard tap down to Donato opened up a centering pass to Bertuzzi, whose kneeling redirection revitalized the visitors as Vladislav Gavrikov watched.
With 8:12 to play, the Kings went up again by way of Danault’s first marker of the campaign. An offensive-zone faceoff win set up Moore’s pass for a Fiala one-timer that missed wide, clanked off the end boards and went straight to Danault, who had outworked Jones down low, for a pop-in goal.
“Coincidentally, (Danault scored), but he played his best game of the year,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said.
Though the Kings owned every favorable analytic indicator as well as heavy advantages in traditional stats like faceoffs and shots on net, they let Chicago linger and soon found themselves in a tie game as Chicago struck at 3:26 and again at 5:34 of the third period.
Defenseman Alex Vlasic started a seemingly innocuous breakout before Lukas Reichel burst across three zones to deliver a slick backhand pass into the slot for Smith’s one-timer.
Just over two minutes earlier, Foligno turned another innocent-looking play into a goal. He lurched from the red line to the high slot and let fly with a long shot. As Foligno beat Joel Edmundson to the net for the rebound, Kuemper swiped at the puck and appeared to sweep it in with the back of his glove.
“They kind of left the middle open for me, I don’t know if it was Nick from 10 years ago but it felt like it after,” said Foligno, 37, who also complimented Reichel’s intrepid play to create Chicago’s second goal. “I’m happy it kind of got us going, and it’s a testament to the guys that we finished it out.”
The Kings maintained a heavy shot advantage wire-to-wire Saturday but it was a one-shot game for most of the first 40 minutes, including a pair of unsuccessful Chicago power plays, until Laferriere cushioned their lead with 1:23 remaining in the second period.
Laferriere was a much more active participant on his second goal than on his first, a backdoor tap-in. First, his dogged forechecking forced a Vlasic turnover deep in the Chicago zone. Then, after Chicago recovered the puck, Laferriere chased the play out to the red line where he separated Bertuzzi from the puck to send Alex Turcotte and Danault off on a counterattack. Laferriere trailed the play and potted his team-leading eighth goal off a lively wrist shot from just above the left faceoff dot.
“There’s highlight-reel goals, some of which are just such pure skill. But you could also look at that 12-second sequence and call it a highlight-reel goal,” Hiller said. “That’s impressive, very, very impressive.”
Late in the first period, Tanner Jeannot took exception to Foligno’s hit on Mikey Anderson and the two fought in one corner of the Kings’ zone before the team headed to intermission with the Kings up 1-0.
They had opened the scoring 3:57 into the match during their first man advantage of the afternoon. Brandt Clarke received the puck at the right point, reversing it to Fiala above the left circle. His pass to Kopitar near the goal line isolated the Kings’ captain with Vlasic, and as Kopitar drove the net he slipped the puck between Vlasic’s legs to an open Laferriere for an uncontested tally at the opposite post.
Next up, the Kings travel to Nashville to take on the struggling Predators, whose free-agent frenzy has only led to an early-season faceplant.
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