Goal-starved Kings fall to Kraken for sixth loss

January has historically been the harshest time of the 12 months for the Kings, who haven’t had a successful report in that month the last three seasons. But winter grew darkish and gloomy a little earlier than traditional because December has hardly been a stroll in the park.

With Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken, the Kings head into the NHL’s three-day Christmas break having misplaced six of their last seven. And issues aren’t getting simpler any time soon: when the workforce returns to the ice Saturday, it’ll play host to the Ducks, who lead the Pacific Division in wins, before closing out 2025 Monday on the highway against the Colorado Avalanche, who lead the NHL in wins.

“It’s not going the way we all want to,” ahead Kevin Fiala said. “But you know, that’s going to happen for everybody. So it’s us who have to do something about it. Who can pull us out of it? Nobody else.

“I’m not worried. Like, I’m sure we’re gonna get out of this. But it’s not acceptable right now.”

And if it doesn’t change proper now, the remainder of the season will likely be as cold as a winter frost for the Kings.

It’s not just that the workforce is dropping, but how it’s dropping that is most regarding. The Kings (15-12-9) are thirty first in the 32-team NHL in scoring, thirtieth on the facility play and have scored more than two objectives just twice in 11 video games this month. That’s negated a protection that is second in the league in objectives allowed.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to make sense of things,” coach Jim Hiller said when requested to clarify a slide that has dropped the Kings into the center of the division standings. “We just feel like we haven’t had a good run of games where we felt like, win or lose, we really like how we’re playing.

“That’s something that we’ll keep driving towards. We just haven’t had it yet.”

Last season, Hiller’s Kings tied franchise information for wins and factors in the common season and had the best home mark in workforce historical past. This season, they’re 4-8-4 at Crypto.com Arena, the second-worst home report in the Western Conference. And that has basic supervisor Ken Holland answering questions about Hiller’s future behind the bench.

“I expect him to be here the rest of the season,” said Holland last week, not precisely a full-throated vote of confidence.

Yet for all their struggles, December has just been a continuation of the issues that have plagued the Kings all season.

“We all have high expectations for ourselves,” Hiller said. “We just haven’t hit our stride yet. That’s the part that we’re chasing. That’s what we have to focus on. We have to hit that stride.

“It’s a difficult time right now, for sure.”

On Tuesday, Hiller tried to shake issues up by mixing up his traces, most considerably pairing Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko with middle Alex Turcotte. And while Fiala and Kuzmenko both responded with objectives, they didn’t come until the Kraken had taken a 3-0 lead.

The first objective got here from Jordan Eberle, who was left alone in entrance of the Kings’ internet, giving him a lot of space to settle a move from Matty Beniers before lifting the puck around goaltender Pheonix Copley and under the crossbar for his thirteenth objective of the season. It was the fourth power-play objective the Kings had allowed in the last two nights and the sixth in 4 video games.

The Kraken doubled their lead on a quirky objective less than eight minutes later, with Copley misjudging a deflected shot from Seattle’s Frederick Gaudreau, permitting the puck to knuckle off his glove then trickle through his legs for the objective.

Ben Meyers prolonged Seattle’s lead to 3-0 with less than 4 minutes left in the second before the Kings finally bought on the board with an unassisted objective from Fiala, his thirteenth of the season, 11 seconds later.

Kings coach Jim Hiller watches from the bench during the second period of a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday evening at Crypto.com Arena.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

Now the Kings can have three days to assume about that, although Fiala said he’d gotten over the sport by the time he completed showering.

“If you win five in a row or lose five in a row or whatever, it’s forgotten. It’s in the past,” he said. “I think we take the good things with us and the bad things we hopefully analyze and get better at.”

For Hiller, the break couldn’t come at a better time. Or a worse time since the workforce’s current seven-game stoop is its deepest since the winter of 2023-24. That one price coach Todd McLellan his job.

“I hope the players are able to relax and refresh themselves,” Hiller said. “It’s been from September till now, with the schedule and how busy it is. And 85% of our games, we’ve been playing within one goal.

“It’s taxing physically and mentally. So I’m sure those guys need a break.”