Fiala scores twice, Kings defeat Rangers for 4th straight win

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Kings tied their franchise record for home wins in a season with a 3-1 victory against the New York Rangers at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday.

The Kings are 26-3-4 on home ice, their fifth season with 26 wins (1990-91, 2005-06, 2015-16, 2022-23). They also extended their franchise-record home point streak to 15 games. They are 12-0-3 during the point streak with seven straight wins at home.

“It’s been awesome, it’s been fun to play in front of the fans,” said forward Kevin Fiala, who scored twice. “We feel home here. We feel great here. Obviously we’re strong here, and the feeling kind of, you know, we kind of feel it, we’re going to win no matter if we’re up or down.”

Phillip Danault also scored, and Darcy Kuemper made 22 saves for the Kings (40-21-9), who moved two points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for second in the Pacific Division.

“I think it’s just a bunch of guys in unison,” said forward Trevor Moore, who returned after missing a 7-2 win against the Boston Bruins on Sunday because of an upper-body injury. “The ‘D’ are playing awesome. The forwards are helping the ‘D’ out. You know, when we’re all playing together, we’re a really hard team to beat. And with the fans in our building, it’s made it a really tough place to play.”

J.T. Miller scored, and Igor Shesterkin made 30 saves for the Rangers (34-32-6), who remained one point behind the Montreal Canadiens, who have two games in hand, for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

“It gets tiring because I feel like over the last few weeks we’ve been playing some good hockey and still losing,” New York center Mika Zibanejad said. “We find a way to lose.”

Miller put the Rangers ahead 1-0 at 2:10 of the second period when he swept in a centering pass from Alexis Lafreniere with Kuemper trying to reposition after getting turned around. Play continued following the sequence as Kuemper appeared to have kept the puck out with a sprawling pad save, but video review determined the puck completely crossed the goal line.

Fiala tied it 1-1 on the power play at 10:54, getting to the right post to chip in Andrei Kuzmenko’s cross-slot pass.

Kings captain Anze Kopitar had the secondary assist, the 831st of his career, passing Henrik Sedin (830) for the fourth-most in NHL history by a player born outside North America.

Danault gave the Kings a 2-1 lead at 17:48 of the second period. He used his right skate to control the rebound of Moore’s wrist shot from the right circle before shooting over an outstretched Shesterkin from below the left circle.

Los Angeles was 2-for-4 on the power play. In the 10 games since Kuzmenko was acquired in a trade with the Philadelphia Flyers on March 7, it is 6-for-23 (26 percent) on the man-advantage.

“It looks a lot better, doesn’t it, with Kuzmenko?” Kings head coach Jim Hiller said. “Whether we score it or not, can we all agree that it looks a lot more dangerous?”

Fiala scored an empty-net goal at 19:45 of the third period for the 3-1 final.

“They’re feeling it,” Zibanejad said. “It’s obviously a good team, but I think we played well enough to at least give us a chance to win. But just couldn’t get it done.”

NOTES: Kings forward Tanner Jeannot missed the final 16:07 of the third period after sustaining an undisclosed injury. Hiller said Jeannot will not travel with the team for its game at the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday … Kings forward Alex Turcotte (upper-body injury) did not play and is day to day.