Kings blow out Ducks to maintain gap over Oilers | College News
The Kings moved two factors nearer to clinching home ice for the primary spherical of the playoffs Thursday, using two objectives from Kevin Fiala and objectives from Quinton Byfield, Anze Kopitar, Alex Laferriere and Jordan Spence to a 6-1 rout of the Ducks at Crypto.com Arena.
Andrei Kuzmenko and Adrian Kempe every had three assists.
Cutter Gauthier scored for the Ducks, his twentieth of the season, early within the second period. But Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper didn’t give up one other, extending his streak of video games yielding two or fewer objectives to 15, one short of the fashionable NHL report.
The win gave the second-place Kings a four-point lead over the third-place Edmonton Oilers within the Pacific Division with 4 video games to play. The Kings and Oilers are nearly sure to meet within the first spherical of the Stanley Cup playoffs for a fourth consecutive season and home ice might be essential for the Kings, who’ve the NHL’s best home report (30-5-4).
The Oilers received the final three playoff collection with the Kings however all three opened in Edmonton.
The Kings needed simply 84 seconds to take the lead, with Byfield scoring from the slot on a energy play. Gauthier matched that 1:46 into the second period, blasting a snap shot previous Kuemper from the appropriate faceoff circle. But Kopitar put the Kings in entrance to keep 31 seconds later, redirecting in a Mikey Anderson shot from the blue line for his twentieth objective of the season.
That marked the 14th time Kopitar has scored 20 or more objectives in a season.
Fiala doubled the lead on a power-play objective from the highest of the appropriate faceoff circle 2 ½ minutes later earlier than Laferriere made it 4-1, batting down a unfastened puck on the high of the left circle, then fanning on a shot from the crease earlier than backhanding a second shot.
Fiala and Spence closed the scoring in third period, with Fiala netting his thirty second of the season on the ability play and Spence getting his fourth. For Kuzmenko, the three assists gave him 10 factors within the final six video games whereas Kempe, whose spouse, Sian, gave start to the couple’s first youngster, a lady, earlier this week, has 9 factors over the identical six-game span.
The Kings had been with out defenseman Drew Doughty for a second straight sport. Doughty’s absence was associated to the damaged left ankle that precipitated him to miss the primary 47 video games of the season. He is listed as day to day
Despite the loss the Ducks, with 35 wins, have already matched their best regular-season whole since 2018-19.
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