Adrian Kempe scored twice in the second period and Anton Forsberg stopped 31 of 32 shots as the LA Kings (15-10-9) secured a 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning (18-13-3) on Thursday night at Benchmark International Arena.
Kempe’s second period tallies came 10:37 apart from each other, and first erased a one goal deficit before giving LA the lead for good. The Kings blocked 22 shots in the victory, which saw them get out-shot 32-20.
The Lightning struck first to take the lead with the lone goal of the opening period from Oliver Bjorkstrand, who netted his fifth of the year on the power play at 12:54 to make it 1-0 in favor of Tampa Bay.
Kempe’s first of the contest came at 5:21 of the second and evened things up at 1-1. Corey Perry secured a loose puck in the neutral zone and found Anze Kopitar on the right wing, who led Kempe into the offensive end. Kempe released a wrist shot from just inside the blue line that made it through a defender’s legs and past goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy to tie the game up with his 12th strike of the year.
The Swedish winger wasn’t done, however, scoring again later in the frame at 15:58 to give the Kings a 2-1 lead. Kempe’s second of the night and 13th of the season also came on a rush from the neutral zone where he beat the Tampa defense up the ice and went all the way to the net before deking to his backhand and causing Vasilevskiy to move out of position before slipping the puck into the open goal.
After taking the lead, the Kings killed off three different minor penalties during the remainder of action to hold on to the win and grab two points in the standings. The final penalty of the contest came with 1:05 remaining in the third while the Lightning had an extra attacker on the ice as Perry was called for holding the stick.
LA finished 4-for-5 on the penalty kill and ended at 0-for-1 on the power play in the contest. Vasilevskiy suffered the loss for Tampa Bay despite turning out 18 of the Kings’ 20 shots.
Postgame thoughts from Forsberg, Kempe, as well as head coach Jim Hiller on LAKingsInsider.com.
