The LA Kings scored four goals over the final two periods in what was a dominating effort over their rival Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Drew Doughty opened the scoring with his second goal of the year and his first since October 15. The former Norris Trophy winner sent a rocket from the blueline past Ducks’ netminder Lukas Dostal, who was perfectly screened by Gabe Vilardi.
The Ducks evened the score on Frank Vatrano‘s sixth tally of the year with just over five minutes remaining in the period. However, the Kings went into the locker room with a 2-1 lead thanks to Alex Iafallo‘s third goal of the year with 21 seconds left before the horn.
After it appeared that Dostal had covered up the puck, the Kings were able to keep the puck alive. Phillip Danault found Iafallo from down low in front of the net for an easy tap-in, significantly shifting the momentum back into LA’s favor.
“It definitely helps to get momentum and talking in the room, getting in good spirits and stuff like that, staying positive,” Iafallo said after the game. “It’d be nice to score at the end of the period all the time.
“We recover a lot of pucks by forechecking, all that stuff it helps push each shift forward. When you get a lot of chances like that and have control the puck, it’s good and it’s fun to play. It’s been good playing with them,” he added.
Into the third period, the Kings continued to dominate in every facet of the game, adding two more goals to seal the game.
Arthur Kaliyev carried the puck through the neutral zone and into the offensive zone, finding a streaking Viktor Arvidsson, who dangled around Dostal to bury his ninth goal of the year to make it a 3-1 LA advantage.
Perhaps the play of the evening came off Kevin Fiala‘s stick with just over nine minutes left in regulation. The Swiss-born forward received the puck at mid-ice in a foot race toward the Ducks net. He was met by two Anaheim defenders but managed to keep his balance and place a backhander into the net.
“It was a great play by Adrian (Kempe), first of all, and then I went basically on a breakaway, but two guys came onto me. I just tried to make a play, and thankfully it worked out,” Fiala said.
Pheonix Copley made his fourth consecutive start for the Kings, stopping 24-of-25 shots, and has continued to give the team some stability in net. The 30-year-old netminder is 5-1-0 in six starts, to go along with a 2.43 GAA and .912 SV%.
POWERPLAY
The Kings converted and went 1-for-5 on the powerplay on Tuesday, with Doughty’s tally being the long marker. Los Angeles enters this weekend’s back-to-back with Calgary and Arizona with the 15th-best powerplay conversion (23.0%).
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