LOS ANGELES –– On a night where the NHL’s leading scorer was in town and two of the 10 active 1000-point players were in action, it was two stay-at-home defensemen that pushed the Kings past the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Kings closed out their homestand three-for-three and beat an opponent with a points streak of five games or more for the third time this month as they bested the Bolts, 4-3 in overtime, on Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena. They’ve posted a 9-2-1 record at home under interim coach Jim Hiller, after going 8-9-6 under his predecessor Todd McLellan. They stayed two points ahead of fourth-place Vegas, who beat Columbus on Saturday.
Vladislav Gavrikov gained steam trailing the play and received a pass from Adrian Kempe that sent him toward the net at full speed for the game-winning goal, his sixth of the campaign, a mere 25 seconds into the extra session. The Kings’ third goal belonged to Mikey Anderson, and it doubled his total for the season.
“Those players do so much of the dirty work, we’ll call it heavy lifting: blocking shots, staying back, defending, cross-checking and doing all that kind of stuff,” Hiller said. “When the players see one of those guys, and tonight both of them scored, they get extra excited for those guys.”
Kempe and Trevor Moore each lit the lamp as well. Cam Talbot turned away 22 shots. The Kings won their third straight game, and on the 30th anniversary of Wayne Gretzky surpassing Gordie Howe’s record for career NHL goals in a 6-3 loss to Vancouver at the Great Western Forum.
Steven Stamkos scored on the power play and then six-on-five to rally from a 3-1 disadvantage and force overtime. Stamkos will likely join Anze Kopitar in the 1200-point club next season, and his dramatic 6-on-5 tally was engineered by Art Ross Trophy frontrunner Nikita Kucherov. Brayden Point scored a power-play goal and assisted on Stamkos’ man-advantage marker. Andrei Vasilevskiy cast aside 19 of 23 bids he faced from the Kings.
The Kings entered the third period with a one-goal lead and a 27-0-3 mark in games where they had an edge at the second intermission. They would prevail again, and against one of the three teams that beat them in overtime after a third-period rally (on Jan. 9 in Tampa Bay), but not without considerable suspense.
Tampa Bay created intrigue and then gave the fans on hand the not-so-welcome gift of bonus hockey behind the efforts of their captain Stamkos.
Moments after he struck both the crossbar and post with a shot, Stamkos tied the game with a one-timer from the left dot with 46 seconds to play.
The Lightning had halved its deficit when Stamkos fired in a diving one-timer from inside the left circle with 4:35 remaining in regulation. The Lightning’s second power-play goal marked the first time since Dec. 10 that the Kings had surrendered multiple man-advantage markers in a game.
“All they need is basically one second, a seam (pass to) a one-timer. We’ve seen that goal over and over again with those players,” Hiller said. “We did a good job on the PK … they just executed when they had a chance and they buried it.”
The Kings had gained separation just 1:22 into the third period when Anderson skated down Darren Raddysh’s errant back pass that drifted from inside the offensive blue line all the way beyond the red line. That flub created a two-on-one with Anderson and dynamic winger Kevin Fiala, but with towering defenseman Victor Hedman impeding a pass, Anderson produced a far-side snipe. It was his second goal of the season and his first since Oct. 27.
“I saw Kevin over there, obviously he always wants it. I tried to look and saw Hedman lay down there, so I figured I was better off trying to shoot than trying to make a play, and happily, it went in,” Anderson said.
In the second stanza, the Kings flipped their deficits in scoring chances and high-danger chances from the first period 180 degrees, earning the period’s only goal in the process.
The Kings changed two forwards while they had possession in the offensive zone, giving Moore two new linemates (Viktor Arvidsson and Pierre-Luc Dubois) as he recalibrated the attack. A Gavrikov shot attempt was blocked and then recovered by Dubois, who headily sent a rolling puck across to the skate of Moore. He kicked it onto his stick to push in his team-leading 26th goal of the season.
“We had them in their own zone and we were able to change to get some fresh guys on,” Hiller said. “They had some tired guys and it worked out pretty good for Moore at the back post.”
Two teams separated by one point turned in an appropriately even first frame on the scoreboard, with the Kings striking first and the Bolts knotting up the count with a power-play goal six seconds before the first intermission.
Tampa Bay’s top-rated power play got the better of the Kings’ No. 1-ranked penalty kill as 13 seconds into Kopitar’s hooking minor, the Lightning scored off a broken play. Kucherov wheeled his way from the top of the right circle to the goal line, where he fanned on a centering pass for Point. Point controlled the loose puck and slipped it past Talbot.
The Kings’ top line put up the game’s first goal behind a stellar start-to-finish effort from Kempe, 7:03 into the match. Kempe’s hit on Matt Dumba dispossessed the defenseman of the puck and keyed an extemporaneous cycle between Kopitar and Quinton Byfield. Kopitar spotted Kempe with position on Dumba at the backdoor, where he redirected the captain’s pass past Vasilevskiy for goal No. 22 of 2023-24.
“He’s always skating, always battling. He’s a really skilled player, but he also plays with an edge as well,” Byfield said of Kempe ahead of the Kings’ upcoming four-game Western Canadian road trip.
