Kicking off the first of a four-game road trip, the Kings played an outstanding road game and impressed on national television. In a convincing win, the Kings defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1.
The Kings opened the game with a dominant first road period. Holding the Maple Leafs to just five shots, the Kings found the back of the net twice in the first 20 minutes. The game-opening goal came 6:38 in as Andreas Englund backhanded in a puck past the shoulder of Maple Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll. Monumentally, it was the first goal of the Swedish defenseman’s career in his 89th career game. Five minutes later, Jordan Spence found Trevor Moore, who found Phillip Danault with a beautiful backdoor pass to double the Kings lead.
The Kings backed up their controlling first period with another dominant 20 minutes in the middle stanza. Despite being outshot 13-10 in the period, the Kings were the only team to score. Stretching the lead to 3-0 was Arthur Kaliyev who acquired the puck off of a deflected pass and rifled home a wrist shot past Woll on the blocked-side on the power play. It is the 15th power-play goal of his career, surpassing Anaheim's Trevor Zegras (14) for the second-most power-play goals among 2019 NHL draftees, trailing only New Jersey's Jack Hughes (23). Driving the pace of play, the Kings closed out the period controlling the puck in the Maple Leafs zone for the final 2:30. All five Maple Leafs logged shifts of over 2:00, but the Kings were unable to capitalize.
The expected pushback from the Maple Leafs came in the third period when a too many men penalty by the Kings opened the door. With 11:35 remaining in the game, Maple Leafs captain John Tavares beat Cam Talbot on the power play. Now down to a two-goal lead, it took the Kings just less than four minutes to respond. The top line for the Kings came up clutch when Adrian Kempe netted his first non-empty net goal of the season. Kempe won a net-front battle and banged home a puck in the crease after a centering pass by Anze Kopitar. The Kings locked down the Maple Leafs offense the rest of they way and earned themselves another two points.
The Kings win now improves the team to an NHL best 4-0-0 road record.
Talbot made 29 saves on 30 shots and improved his record to 4-2-1 on the season.
