The Kings winning streak is now at five games after defeating the Nashville Predators 1-0 in overtime on Saturday night. Closing out a week-long three-game home stand with back-to-back shutouts, the Kings outscored their opponents in LA 8-1 across the trio of games and move back into second place in the Pacific Division, one point ahead of the Edmonton Oilers.
Looking at the box score for this game doesn’t tell the whole story on this occasion. Despite maintaining possession of the puck for the majority of the game, the Kings had been outshot 14-6 through 40 minutes. The Kings did improve the shot count in the third period by putting a dozen more shots on net, but couldn’t beat Justus Annunen through 60 minutes. With the same narrative going for the Predators and Darcy Kuemper on the other end of the ice, 23 visitor’s shots went unsuccessful and the game went to overtime.
There, Quinton Byfield continued to write his script of emergence as a dominant player. Coming just minutes after he hit the post on a 2-on-1 earlier in the 3-on-3 session, Adrian Kempe found red hot goalscorer on the backdoor of another 2-on-1. Byfield cashed in on the golden opportunity for his 17th goal of the season, scoring in his career long sixth consecutive game.
Kuemper’s 24-save shutout makes it back-to-back games without allowing a goal and his shutout streak is currently sitting at 1 hour, 55 minutes and 43 seconds dating back to the second period of Tuesday’s game against the New York Islanders. With the win, Kuemper now holds the longest streak of consecutive games without a regulation loss at home in Kings history. He is 12-0-1 at dating back to December 7th, 2024.
