The Los Angeles Kings have made themselves at home on the road, recording a Western Conference co-leading nine wins in enemy territory.
The Kings will look to continue their good fortune on the road Friday when they visit the Anaheim Ducks in the first Freeway Faceoff of the season.
Los Angeles’ success on the road has been offset a bit by its porous record at home (2-4-3), although the team snapped a three-game winless skid (0-1-2) with a 2-1 victory over the visiting Ottawa Senators on Monday.
“It’s weird. Like two years ago, same thing. We’re hot on the road. Last year, we’re hot at home. Now we’re hot on the road. So, can’t say anything about that,” Quinton Byfield said recently, per RinkRoyalty.com.
Brandt Clarke scored a power-play goal with 6:10 remaining in the third period on Monday. The goal was Clarke’s third of the season and first in his last 12 games.
Warren Foegele also tallied, Joel Edmundson notched a pair of assists and Joel Armia set up a goal to extend his point streak to a season-high three games.
Darcy Kuemper improved to 5-1-1 in his past seven games following his 27-save performance.
“We have so much confidence when he’s in the net,” Clarke said of Kuemper, a Vezina Trophy finalist last season at the age of 35.
“There’s some situations where, like, it almost seems like it’s a bigger breakdown that it looks like. But just because he’s so calm and makes the routine save, like, it doesn’t even get brought up. We’re so grateful to have him, and, yeah, he’s our backbone.”
Adrian Kempe, who leads the team in points (20) and shares top honors in assists (13) with Byfield, has been held off the scoresheet in four of his last five games.
The Ducks dropped a 5-4 decision to the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday to fall to 3-2-0 on their six-game homestand and 8-3-0 at home this season.
“Every game is going to be hard,” Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said. “We talked about that, and that was a good example of what it’s like every night. You’ve got to play right until the end and it’s a battle. You’ve got to know that you can’t give them anything. You’ve got to make them earn it.”
Jackson LaCombe collected a goal and two assists, Cutter Gauthier had one of each and Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish also scored. Gauthier scored his team-leading 14th goal following a redirection of a LaCombe feed 6.3 seconds before the end of regulation.
“I thought we came out hot and we had a lot of chances,” LaCombe said. “Just a few bounces didn’t go our way. That’s just how it is sometimes. I don’t think we did anything wrong at the start. Just happens.”
Beckett Sennecke, 19, notched an assist to become the second teenager in Ducks history to record a five-game point streak, following Oleg Tverdovsky in 1995-96. Sennecke, who has one goal and four assists during that span, was the third overall pick of the 2024 NHL Draft.
