Kings defeat Golden Knights to stay perfect on road

LAS VEGAS -- Cam Talbot made 37 saves, and the Los Angeles Kings won their seventh straight road game to start the season, 4-1 against the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena on Wednesday.

Anze Kopitar scored his 400th NHL goal and had an assist, and Adrian Kempe had a goal and an assist for the Kings (8-2-2), who swept a four-game road trip. They have won six of their past seven games.

“It was the game we thought it would be,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “I thought early it was a boxing match. Everybody was just taking jabs and waiting for something to give. “[We were] fortunate to score first, and I think that's always an advantage against this team. And then after that, [we] checked fairly well. When we broke down we had excellent goaltending, and all of that adds up to a chance for success and on the way to a win.”

William Karlsson scored, and Adin Hill made 29 saves for the Golden Knights (11-2-1), who have lost their past two games after winning four straight.

“I thought we played pretty well for a majority of the game,” said Vegas captain Mark Stone, who had an assist. “We just kind of shut it down a little bit [in the third period], didn't really have our legs. But adversity doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger.”

Kempe gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 11:30 of the second period, tapping in a rebound of Jordan Spence’s shot for his fifth goal of the season.

Trevor Moore scored on a redirection of another Spence shot at 15:58 for a power-play goal to make it 2-0.

"We should have been better on the races and battles; that made a difference in the game, particularly on special teams,” Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said. “They kept pucks alive on their power play. They won a lot of races to keep it in our end on our power play. That was the difference in the game -- special teams’ second effort for L.A. was better than our second effort. [The] 5-on-5 game was fairly even, personally."

Talbot stopped all 19 shots he faced in the second.

“He had to clean up some messes when we made mistakes,” McLellan said. “[He was] calm. [He] understands the momentum of a game. He got us some good whistles. Just a very stabilizing factor in the goal right now.”

Pierre-Luc DuBois extended the lead to 3-0 at 2:42 of the third period on the man-advantage, beating Hill short side after Kempe’s tip attempt went wide and ricocheted off the end boards.

Karlsson cut it to 3-1 at 14:33, roofing a wrist shot from the high slot, but Kopitar scored No. 400 into an empty net with 12 seconds left for the 4-1 final.

“I didn’t think it was going to happen tonight, [but] I figured I’d give it a go (at an empty net),” Kopitar said. “Memories like this, you want to be on the winning side of this. I thought we played a solid, solid game tonight. It’s obviously a good feeling to get the two points.”

NOTES: Kopitar joined Luc Robitaille (557), Marcel Dionne (550) and Dave Taylor (431) as the fourth player to score at least 400 career goals with Los Angeles. He won 13 of 24 face-offs (54.2 percent). … Talbot became the sixth goalie in Kings history with seven or more wins through his first 10 games with them. … Fiala became the fifth Swiss player in NHL history to play 500 games. … Karlsson won 14 of 18 face-offs (77.8 percent). … Vegas defensemen Shea Theodore and Alex Pietrangelo tied for the team lead with five shots on goal each.