Thomas gets 1st NHL goal, Kings hold off Sharks to keep pace in wild card

SAN JOSE -- Akil Thomas scored his first NHL goal, and the Los Angeles Kings held on for a 2-1 win against the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday.

Thomas, who was selected by the Kings in the second round of the 2018 NHL Draft (No. 51), scored on a wrist shot midway through the first period in his second career game.

The forward made his NHL debut in a 4-3 loss at the Winnipeg Jets on Monday after being recalled from Ontario of the American Hockey League.

"It felt amazing," Thomas said. "For me, I just wanted to have a good first (period). To score in the first period kind of just made the nerves go away and made me feel a little bit more comfortable."

Adrian Kempe scored, and David Rittich made 15 saves for the Kings (40-25-11), who have won six of their past nine and were coming off a 5-2 win against the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday.

"We'll take the win," Los Angeles interim coach Jim Hiller said. "They played hard. We didn't give them much. Didn't like our power play, but we got the win, so we'll just move forward from here."

The Kings remained one point behind the Nashville Predators for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference. The Predators defeated the St. Louis Blues 6-3 on Thursday.

"In the end, all anybody cares about tomorrow is, did you get the two points or didn't you?" Hiller said. "So, we'll take the two points. We'll leave this one behind. We'll have a rest tomorrow and then we'll work on the next two points."

Klim Kostin scored, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 25 saves for the Sharks (17-50-8), who are 1-10-1 in their past 12 games.

"I didn't love our team's first period. We played much better in the second and third," San Jose coach David Quinn said. "They know they're good. Nobody's nervous, nobody's rattled. The guy who has the puck knows he's good, and then he looks around and sees the other four guys and he knows they're pretty good. So [they] play with a little different swagger and poise and calmness."

Kempe gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 10:55 of the first period when he scored on a breakaway.

"To get a good start was really important," Los Angeles forward Pierre-Luc Dubois said. "We did that, and that was the difference-maker tonight."

Thomas scored 18 seconds later to make it 2-0 at 11:13 after he was set up by Jordan Spence.

Kostin cut it to 2-1 at 18:08 of the third period on a wrist shot with Blackwood pulled for the extra skater.

"I thought we learned and got better as some of the game went on as far as gapping up and not letting them build that speed through the neutral zone," Sharks forward Luke Kunin said.

NOTES: Thomas became the second Kings player this season to have his first NHL goal stand as the game-winner, following Brandt Clarke (Feb. 17, 2024, at the Boston Bruins in overtime). ... With the assist on Kostin's goal, Mikael Granlund became the sixth player to have 40 in his first season with the Sharks, joining Joe Thornton (72 in 2005-06), Dany Heatley (43 in 2009-10), Erik Karlsson (42 in 2018-19), Todd Elik (41 in 1993-94) and Dan Boyle (41 in 2008-09).