Kings' Anze Kopitar (left) celebrates with goaltender Cam Talbot after a 6-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena. Kopitar had two goals and one assist, and Talbot had 22 saves. (Photo by Harry Howe/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES — The Kings inflated their stats and, more importantly, defeated the beleaguered Chicago Blackhawks 6-2 to secure two points from games 81 to 68.
Less than a week after a 5-0 romp in the Windy City, the Kings returned to Los Angeles and the Western Conference playoff contention was clearly in focus ahead of a three-game homestand.
The first stage of the series placed the Kings in third place in the Pacific Division standings, five points behind the Minnesota Wild for the final wild-card spot.
The Wild visited Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday night hoping Kings captain Anze Kopitar doesn't make more history.
Kopitar added two goals and an assist against Chicago, moving him one point away from becoming the 52nd player in NHL history and second Kings player behind Marcel Dionne to reach 1,200 career points.
On Tuesday, with 419 fewer games played, Kopitar passed Patrick Marleau (league leader with 1,779 games played) for 51st place on the league's all-time points list.
Kopitar's next point will make him the third player born outside of North America to score 1,200 career points with one franchise, joining Stan Mikita and Evgeni Malkin.
Alex Laferriere, Vladislav Gavrikov, Phillip Danault and Trevor Lewis joined Kopitar on the score sheet against the Central Division-placed Blackhawks, thanks to three assists from Adrian Kempe, and goaltender Petr Mrazek. shined brightly.
Kings goalie Cam Talbot rejected 22 shots for his 21st win of the season, and Mrazek stopped 18 of the Kings' 24 shots.
The Kings (35-22-11) got off to a slow start, but at 12:03, the larger Pierre-Luc Dubois occupied the space around Mrazek, and Laferrière cleaned up the rebound inside the left circle for a moment. took the lead.
LaFerrier's 11th goal of the season was his second in less than a week against the Blackhawks (19-45-5, 43 points), who lost for the 24th time in the past 25 road games. Ta.
Unlike last Friday's stand-alone game in which the Kings scored four goals in the first period, the Blackhawks were able to score one goal early and keep the game close for the first 20 minutes.
In the 15th minute, the Kings had the best penalty kill in the league after back-to-back penalties with seven seconds left put them within two men, and a deflected shot hit Nick Foligno's left skate, giving the visiting winger his 16th goal of the season. Conceded a goal.
“With all due respect to Chicago, we're going to be playing a better team at the end of this period. We can't afford to put a period on the line,” Kempe said of the slow start. “We have to fight for 60 minutes here because it can make a huge difference in points and things like that.”
Overall, the Kings killed three of Chicago's four power plays.
Any chance the Blackhawks had to hang around disappeared in the second period.
With assists from Kempe and Kopitar, Gavrikov took a snap shot from inside the blue line, and at 9:32 the shot sailed over Mrazek's stick for the Russian's fifth goal of the season and 100th of his career. became.
Kempe's next assist came when he intercepted a pass from behind the goal and fed it to Kopitar inside the right circle for the Slovenian's third goal in three games.
The Swede added his third goal late in the middle with a power-play finish after receiving a pass from Kevin Fiala and dumping the puck in front of the Blackhawks' net, where it was deflected by Kopitar.
Kopitar's 75th career 3-point game was also his 159th multi-point shot at home, tying him for third in Kings history with Dave Taylor.
“We were looking for him the whole third period,” Kempe said of Kopitar. His grandmother saw him play for the first time in several years. “He had a good look. It was close. But obviously we're looking forward to the next game. It was a close game tonight. He was hot out there.”
To close out the final period, a beautiful pass from Fiala to Trevor Moore freed Danault for his 16th goal of the season.
Chicago got one back with Kevin Korchinski scoring his fifth goal. Connor Bedard, a notable rookie who was selected No. 1 overall in the 2023 NHL Draft, recorded an assist on this play and scored 55 points, the highest among all rookies. But the 18-year-old Chicago center missed some chances and was otherwise subdued.
With less than three minutes remaining, Trevor Lewis put an exclamation point on the result by redirecting Dubois' slap shot and scoring his eighth goal of the year.
“At this point in the year, the most important thing is to get two points,” Kings interim head coach Jim Hiller said. “We needed someone and we knew who it would be. It's good to see the big men, especially Kopi, score two goals.
“We can criticize this all we want. We don't have time for that. We'll have a better opponent tomorrow night.”
Latest injury information
Kings center Alex Turcotte suffered an apparent upper-body injury in Game 3 and missed the final 7 minutes and 43 seconds of the game.
