The LA Kings made it three straight wins out of the holiday break, and eight straight wins on home ice, as they skated to a 3-0 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday afternoon at Crypto.com Arena.
After a first period that had a number of shots on goal, but none that beat a goaltender, the Kings opened the scoring just over six minutes into the second period.
Defenseman Jordan Spence sent a high, floated area pass from his own zone, into the path of forward Andre Lee skating down the ice. Lee took the puck in stride to generate a breakaway, on which he deked to the forehand and buried his shot back against the grain, under the crossbar and in, for his first career NHL goal. Spence and defensive partner Jacob Moverare assisted on the play, as the Kings took a 1-0 lead.
New Jersey appeared to have tie the game at one, midway through the second period, but a successful coaches challenge from the Kings coaching staff negated the goal. Upon review, Timo Meier’s goal did not stand due to goaltender interference, sending the game into the second intermission with a 1-0 Kings lead.
Midway through the third period, the Kings added an insurance goal via forward Quinton Byfield, doubling their lead in the process. Just seconds after exiting the penalty box, after a phantom tripping minor, Byfield drove towards the net off the rush, firing a through pass from Phillip Danault first time into the back of the net, past Devils netminder Jake Allen and in for his ninth goal of the season and a 2-0 lead.
Forward Adrian Kempe iced the game with 4:25 to play, as he hit the empty net from center ice for his team-leading 18th goal of the season, putting the Kings ahead 3-0.
Hear from Lee, goaltender Darcy Kuemper and Head Coach Jim Hiller following today’s game.
Andre Lee
Darcy Kuemper
On getting that type of victory against New Jersey
It was just a big game for us. We love playing against the other top teams in the league and this is a tough team to play against, they’ve got a ton of skill. We came with the mindset that we were going to just play hard from start to finish and make them make mistakes. I thought our d-men in front, they were very incredible tonight. We just had a team mindset, start to finish and that’s a huge win for us.
On closing the door on a shutout
Shutouts usually take a whole team, it’s a team stat really. There’s games where, for instance, they made a great pass in the second there and Foegs has a great block, so it takes plays like that to get a shutout. It takes everybody and we had everyone tonight.
On seeing Andre Lee get his first career NHL goal from the opposite end of the ice
I try to wave at him from the net and hopefully he looks my way. It’s always super exciting whenever somebody gets their first and he works so hard out there. To get rewarded with a beautiful goal like that, in such a meaningful moment, that’s a pretty one to have as your first, so that was awesome.
On his point of view on the coaches challenge, which wiped a New Jersey goal off the board
He pushed me back onto the goalline and then my stick kind of got tangled up in his feet, so I didn’t really have a chance to make the save. I would have been in a way different position if he had not bumped into me, so I thought it was a great challenge.
Jim Hiller
On the win today, versus the 3-1 loss in New Jersey in December
I think it was a fairly similar game, there weren’t a lot of chances in that December game, but we had even less. So, I think the difference in this game is at 5-on-5, I thought we were way more dangerous than we were in Jersey and both goalies played really well, I thought their goalie played well too. We had a pretty good plan, I think, going into Jersey, and it was obvious, we could see in clips from that game, how important it was to do some certain things, and I thought we executed very well.
On seeing Andre Lee get his first NHL goal
Yeah, it’s just one of the best things, one of the best things to be part of that and see somebody score their first NHL goal. It’s such a journey for everybody, twists and turns in different ways for all players. He’s 24, some guys get it when they’re 20, when they’re younger, so he took a longer road. It’s just really exciting. You couldn’t wipe the smile off his face.
On the importance of a penalty kill unit that went 5-for-5 in the win
We talked about that, and it has been, all year, I know we’ve been scored on but we’ve put a lot of pressure on teams. It’s difficult to go against that type of penalty kill, but it’s equally as difficult to penalty kill that way. It requires a ton of energy, a ton of quick reads and, most importantly, a very good stick. You see primarily, it’s Edmondson, Gavrikov and Anderson back there and then when it does break down, and it did in the second period, you see Gavy just laying down and cleaning up anything to the back door. I’m really proud of those three in particular, they do a lot of work there and they have really bought in and understood how that system works and they do it as well as anyone.
On the decision to go for the coaches challenge, which kept the Kings ahead
[Video Coach Samson Lee] called that from the back? It was 50/50, I thought. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to make the call, I’ll tell you that. In fact, I was thinking, we were looking at it, [Newell Brown] and I, and I just thought, I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t have challenged it myself if I was one making the decision. Sammy came in late and said let’s challenge it. Obviously it was the right decision.
On the team’s defensive effort and playing well in the middle of the ice
We liked our game a lot. Through the first two periods, the chances that they had primarily were our giveaways, when we had the puck and we gave it away. They didn’t slice and dice us and kick it out and drive through us, we were really good there, we controlled the middle of the ice. Then I thought in the third period, what we did better was we cleaned up those turnovers, so we didn’t give them anything easy. They’re going to create offense, they’re a good offensive team. Just didn’t want to give them anything easy.
On completing the shutout, after seeing some fall short at home this season
It looked good until we get the penalty, now they’re going to go back at 6-on-4 and 6-on-4 is tough against that team. I felt we were going to win the game, but I didn’t want to give one up in that situation, because Darce had been so close so many times.
On Joel Edmundson’s game tonight
The guy that you guys haven’t mentioned, that I thought in particular maybe had his best game of the year, was Joel Edmondson. Penalty kill, net front, those type of players and when you acquire a guy like Eddie, he’s not flashy, but big and strong and mean and been there. I thought in that third period, the last 8, 10 minutes, the physicality, the presence at the net, the boxing out, the strength on the stick, you start to see why those guys become so valuable in games that are tight and they’re hard. Smitty rolled him out, he might have set his record for time on ice, I don’t know if that was the case or not, but he rolled him out there a lot. He’s been really good for us, I thought tonight he really asserted himself and made you go like “okay, that’s a Stanley Cup winning defenseman”. I can see why he was a part of that team.
Notes –
• Forward Andre Lee (1-0=1) scored his fifirst career NHL goal, becoming the seventh skater in franchise history to score his first career goal against the Devils franchise, and only the second to do so at home, joining Daryl Evans (March 3,1982 vs. then-Rockies). Per NHL PR, Lee became the 29th player in NHL history to score his first career goal on Jan. 1 and just the third in the last 13 seasons (Jake Lucchini in 2023 w/ OTT & Will Borgen in 2022 w/ SEA). The only other Kings player to score his first career goal on Jan. 1 was Todd Elik (1990). Lee is also the 11th different UMass-Lowell (H-East) alum to score a goal in the NHL.
• Center Quinton Byfield (1-0=1) scored his ninth goal of the season to extend his point streak to three games (3-2=5). With his goal, Byfield (37-71=108) also ties Buffalo’s JJ Peterka (50-58=108) for eighth amongst 2020 NHL draftees.
• Forward Adrian Kempe (1-0=1) scored his team-leading 18th goal of the season. With the goal, Kempe extends his home point streak against the Devils to a fifth game (4-1=5), dating back to Dec. 6, 2018. He is the 11th different skater in franchise history to achieve such a streak.
• Center Phillip Danault (0-1=1) picked up his 17th assist of the season, extending his assist streak to a career-best fifth game (0-5=5). It is the fourth time in Danault’s career he has had an assist streak of five games. The assist also extends his point streak against the Devils to a third game (3-2=5), dating back to March 3, 2024.
• Forward Warren Foegele (0-1=1) extended his point streak to three straight games (2-3=5) for the second time this season with his 12th assist and 23rd point on the campaign.
• Defenseman Jordan Spence (0-1=1) tallied his 11th assist of the season for his fifth point (0-5=5) in his last six contests. With the assist, Spence has notched a point in back-to-back games against the Devils (1-0=1, Dec. 12, 2024).
• Defenseman Jacob Moverare (0-1=1) collected his third assist and point of the season. With the helper, Moverare records a point in back-to-back games (0-1=1; Dec. 29, 2024 vs. PHI) for the first time in his NHL career.
• Defenseman Mikey Anderson (0-2=2) collected his seventh and eighth assists of the season for his third multi-point effort of the season. Only Vladislav Gavrikov (4) has more multi-point games this season among Kings defensemen. With his two helpers, Anderson’s 55 career assists is tied with San Jose’s Timothy Liljegren for the eighth most amongst defenseman drafted in the 2017 NHL Draft.
• Captain Anze Kopitar played in his 29th career game against the New Jersey Devils, tying Mark Hardy and Mike Murphy for the fifth-most such games in franchise history. This New Year’s Day contest marks Kopitar’s 1,410th career game, passing Paul Coffey (1,409), for the 41st most games played in NHL history and tying Norm Ullman (1,410) for the 40th most all-time.
• Goaltender Darcy Kuemper stopped all 32 shots he faced to record his second shutout of the season and extend his personal point streak to eight games (6-0-2 dating to Dec. 7). The last Kings goalie with a point streak as long was Pheonix Copley (7-0-1 in 2022-23).
• The Kings extended their home winning streak to eight games, tied for the third-longest such run in franchise history.
The Kings are scheduled to return to the ice for practice tomorrow at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.
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