It’s rinse, wash, repeat for the Kings on the road after another win today. The Kings knocked off their Freeway Face-Off foes 5-2 on Friday afternoon in Anaheim, extending their away winning streak to begin the season to 9-0-0. With the win, the Kings became just the third team in NHL history to win their first nine road games, joining the 2006-07 Buffalo Sabres and the 2009-10 New Jersey Devils.
The Kings broke the ice midway into the first period when Kevin Fiala scored his first of two goals on the afternoon. Fiala made a heads up play and beat Ducks goalie John Gibson with a tightly angled shot on the power play. Picking up an assist on the Fiala goal was Anze Kopitar, who in doing so recorded his 757th career assist which ties Marcel Dionne (757) for the most assists in franchise history. Just 2:01 later, the Kings doubled the lead with their second power play goal of the game. Arthur Kaliyev found the back of the net with a well placed wrist shot for his fourth goal of the season and third goal with the man advantage.
Up 2-0 heading into the second period, the Kings pocketed a pair of goals early into the middle stanza to give themselves some distance between themselves and the Ducks. Quinton Byfield extended the Kings lead to 3-0 with an outstanding deflection off of a Vladislav Gavrikov shot following a face-off win. Byfield’s goal came just 1:17 into the period and marks his fourth of the season, moving him just one shy of his career high. A minute and a half later, Fiala notched his second goal of the game with a beautiful and patient drive to the net. Fiala out-waited Gibson as he came across the crease and found twine in doing so. The goal for Fiala is his sixth of the season, extending his goal and point streak (5-2=7) against Anaheim to four games. It marked Fiala’s first multi-goal outing of the 2023-24 campaign.
Then up 4-0, the Kings surrendered a goal to the Ducks with 7:18 to go in the second period as Radko Gudas blasted a slapshot passed Cam Talbot.
Netting the fifth and final goal of the Kings afternoon was Kopitar for his second point of the night, the 287th multi-point game of his career. Trailing by four goals, Alex Killorn found the net on the man advantage to snap the Kings penalty kill streak of 27 consecutive kills.
Talbot stopped 29 of 31 shots to earn his 10th victory of the season in his 14th game with the Kings and improved his record to 10-3-1. Talbot is the third netminder in Kings history to reach the 10-win mark within their first 14 games with the franchise: Pheonix Copley (12-2-0 in 14GP) and Daniel Berthiaume (10-3-0 in 14GP).
