The Kings secured their 20th win of the season on Wednesday night with a come from behind 5-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks. With the win, the Kings reached the 20-win mark in their first 31 games for the seventh time in franchise history. The victory moved the Kings point percentage to a Western Conference best .710%, also good for second best in the NHL, trailing only the New York Rangers.
Going up against the Sharks for the second time in the last eight days, the Kings earned the same result, a convincing win. The difference in this game; the Kings had to play from behind. It was an eventful game for Kings forward Kevin Fiala. The second leading point-getter on the team began his night with a costly turnover midway into the first period with an errant drop pass that resulted in the game’s first goal. Intended for Mikey Anderson, Fiala dropped the puck right on the tape of the Sharks Fabian Zetterlund’s stick, resulting in a breakaway goal. Subsequently, Fiala was benched for the remaining 8:58 of the first period.
The message was loud and clear for Fiala as he returned to the rotation in the beginning of the second period and made up for his mistake. Fiala quickly evened the score 2:57 into the period with his own breakaway goal. Fiala picked up loose puck at the Kings blue line after Jordan Spence jarred the puck free and deked his way past goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen for his seventh goal of the season. The Kings then struck just 13 second after Fiala’s game-tying goal when Trevor Lewis forced a turnover behind the Sharks net on the forecheck and surprised Kahkonen with a backhand shot to put the Kings up 2-1. The Kings continued to stretch the lead in the second period as Pierre-Luc Dubois netted his seventh goal of the season off of a rebound from an Arthur Kaliyev slap shot, set up by Alex Laferriere.
The third period was all Adrian Kempe as last year’s 40-goal scorer potted two goals to put the Icing on the cake. First pushing the lead to 4-1 just 3:36 into the period, Kempe deflected a Matt Roy point shot beautifully into the upper corner of the net. Kempe then notched his 11th goal of the season after getting behind the Sharks defender and finished with a five hole goal at the 15:42 marker. With the two goals, Kempe becomes the fourth Kings skater to reach the 10-goal mark. It was Kempe’s first multi-goal performance of the season and his team-leading ninth multi-point effort of the campaign.
David Rittich made his second start of the season for the Kings, both coming against the Sharks. Rittich stopped 24 of 25 shots and improved to 2-0-0.
