Entering Thursday night, the Kings had just one win in seven games on home ice. By night’s end, the Kings doubled that and improved their home record to 2-3-3 with an impressive 2-1 win over the Florida Panthers.
After four days off of gameplay, the Kings quickly got back into the swing of things when the line of Trevor Moore-Phillip Danault-Kevin Fiala teamed up for the game’s first goal just 1:20 in. Moore successfully fed Danault with a breakout pass leading to a 2-on-1 and Danault connected with Fiala on a saucer pass, leading Fiala in alone against Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. There, Fiala beat the Russian goalkeeper going forehand, backhand and past the glove of Bobrovsky. By netting the game’s first goal, the Kings improved their record to 7-0-1 when scoring first this season.
Leading 1-0 after 20 minutes, the Kings also scored the only goal the second period. Anze Kopitar found the back of the net after one-timing a Fiala pass in the high slot. Kopitar’s power-play goal gives him a team-high three tallies with the man advantage and a team-high eight goals this season.
Into the third period, the red hot Sam Reinhart cut the Kings lead in half with his 13th goal of the season with 8:15 remaining in regulation. With the goal Reinhart extended his point streak to six games. The Kings shut down the Panthers offense otherwise, killing off all five power plays faced.
Can Talbot got back into the win column, stopping 30 of 31 shots. Talbot moves into a tied for second in the NHL in wins (8). Talbot moves to 8-3-1 with the win.
