The Kings made it back-to-back wins on Wednesday night with a 6-3 defeat over the Montreal Canadiens. Kicking off their extended six-game home stand with another home win, the Kings improved their league-best home record to 16-3-1.
Coming out hot, the Kings completely bombarded the Canadiens in the opening 1:39 of the game. Outshooting the Canadiens 8-1 in the first 99 seconds, the Kings were rewarded and took the early lead thanks to Vladislav Gavrikov. Coming off of an offensive zone draw, Alex Laferriere almost scored with his shot in the slot, but the eventual rebound made its way around the back of the Canadiens net and Quinton Byfield sent the puck up to Gavrikov’s point. Gavrikov stepped into a one-timer and went post-in for his third goal of the season. Unable to add to their early goal, Gavrikov’s tally was all the offense that first period provided and in their first home game in two weeks the Kings took a 13-7 shot advantage into the intermission.
The puck dropped for period two and within five-plus minutes a pair more of goals were on the board. First tying the game, the Canadiens found a bit of puck luck after a Mike Matheson shot from the point. Upon releasing the shot, the puck deflected off of the backside of a defending Drew Doughty, off of the top of Darcy Kuemper’s helmet and into the net 3:51 into the middle stanza. Responding almost immediately, Warren Foegele used his speed and earned himself a penalty shot after being taken down on a breakaway just 1:32 later. Awarded the free shot, Foegele beat Jakub Dobes with a wrist shot just inside the blocker, regiving the Kings the lead. Each team went 0-for-2 on the man advantage in the period and the Kings took a 2-1 lead into the third with a 23-15 advantage in shots.
Enter period three and chaos ensued. Right away the Kings doubled their lead. Taking just 15 seconds to find the back of the net, Brandt Clarke ripped a one-timer from the point and with the help of a Adrian Kempe net-front screen, Clarke’s shot beat Dobes for his fourth goal of the season. Just over three minutes later the Canadiens trimmed the deficit back to one. The recently acquired Alexandre Carrier added to scoresheet to become the fourth defenseman on the night to score, beating Kuemper with a seeing-eye shot over the blocker. With the score 3-2 halfway through the period, the total of goals nearly doubled the rest of the way. Beginning with a Kevin Fiala one-timer, Fiala’s linemates Byfield and Laferriere were credited with assist's on the play as Byfield sprung Laferriere for a clean zone entry and Laferriere fed Fiala after gaining depth in the zone. Leading by two goals again, the Kings allowed the Canadiens life after an offensive zone turnover from the home team resulted in an immediate goal the other way. Becoming the fifth defenseman to find the back of the net on the night, Logan Mailloux potted his second career goal to bring the score to 4-3. The back and forth bout concluded with the Kings getting the last laugh on this particular night. Burying his second goal of the game to make it consecutive multi-goal games was Fiala, who again buried via a one-timer. Coming 45 seconds after Mailloux’s tally and with 5:48 remaining in regulation, Fiala’s goal gives the Swiss native 20 goals on the season, his sixth consecutive 20-goal season and seventh career 20-goal season. Trevor Moore added an empty better and the Kings doubled up the Canadiens 6-3.
Kuemper stopped 18 of 21 shots and picked up his 16th win of the season.
