Kings double up Canadiens to extend home dominance

LOS ANGELES — The Kings were holding court once more, reestablishing their third-period gusto and breaking open the Montreal Canadiens’ defense in a 6-3 win that they started out dominating and finished with an offensive flourish on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.

They have won 11 of their past 12 home games and now have consecutive victories overall after salvaging the finale of an otherwise abysmal five-game trip with a win in Carolina. Montreal, which had been the cream of the NHL crop for five weeks, has now lost six of its past seven games.

Kevin Fiala scored two goals for a second straight game and his linemate Quinton Byfield contributed three assists. Vladislav Gavrikov and Warren Foegele had a goal and an assist apiece, while Brandt Clarke and Trevor Moore (empty net) each scored. Darcy Kuemper came up with 18 saves in the opener of a six-game homestand that bookends the upcoming 4 Nations Face-off international tournament.

Defensemen Mike Matheson, Alexandre Carrier and Logan Mailloux scored for Montreal. Jakub Dobeš stopped 31 of 36 shots.

“It was a great team win, and it wasn’t that easy. They pushed back,” Fiala said. “We had a great, great start, and we killed their momentum when they scored, so overall it was a good game.”

There were twice as many goals scored in the third period (six) as in the other two combined.

Moore scored into the empty net to close out an effort that began with Clarke’s goal just 15 seconds into the period.

Between those goals, Fiala struck twice, once off a setup by the patient Alex Laferriere, who turned a two-on-three rush into a thunderous Fiala one-timer at 10:46, and again off a give-and-go play with Gavrikov right after a zone entry at 14:12. The Swiss national has four goals in his past two games, reaching the 20-goal mark for the sixth consecutive season.

The line of Byfield, Fiala and Laferriere didn’t quite mesh earlier in the season, but was lethal for much of the night on Wednesday on the heels of a solid performance on Saturday.

“I love it. We’re clicking right now. We’ve had so many chances, especially today,” Fiala said. “It didn’t work out earlier in the season, but sometimes you have to separate and get back on your game.”

Stuffed between Fiala’s eruptions, Montreal got a marker from Mailloux. He strided confidently into a shot from high in the faceoff circle to make it a one-goal game again with 6:23 to play, only to see his team surrender two unanswered goals.

“Every time we felt like we were coming back, we were giving it back right away. It was hard to sustain momentum,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “That’s a really good team, they play to their identity and they don’t give you much.”

Previously, there was a second soft shot from distance that beat Kuemper, with this one coming after Alex Newhook blew a tire. The puck came to Carrier in the upper right corner of the Kings’ zone, where he let fly with a fluttering shot that snuck through both Drew Doughty and Kuemper to the far side.

“It was a hard game to play, they scored a couple funny goals,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “They took the wind out of our sails a little bit, with those odd goals.”

The Kings had earned their first two-goal lead of the night when Alex Turcotte and Anže Kopitar joined forces to win a board battle, with Kopitar moving the puck high to Clarke. Clarke’s point shot zipped past Dobeš, whose vision was partially obstructed by Adrian Kempe.

“I liked the fact that he shot it off the pass, rather than handling it and trying to slide across the lines, so good, good game,” Hiller said.

The second period saw the two sides exchange goals to maintain the Kings’ edge from the first intermission at the second, also thanks to Kuemper’s quieting of a riotous rush from Montreal’s top line off a Joel Edmundson giveaway.

Just 1:32 after Montreal scored, the Kings recaptured the lead off a penalty shot by Foegele, whose shot between Dobeš’ pad and blocker grazed his arm en route to the nylon. It was Foegele’s 13th goal of the campaign and the Kings’ first conversion of a penalty shot since Austin Wagner cashed in on one against Colorado nearly five years ago.

At the 3:51 mark, the Habs had gotten on the board with a magic bullet. Matheson flinged a wobbling puck toward the net that caromed off Doughty’s posterior and then Kuemper’s head before entering the net.

The Kings, who had three days off prior to the match, came out skating circles around the Habs, who had won in San Jose a night earlier to snap a five-game losing streak. The hosts recorded the first dozen shots of the game and its first goal just 99 seconds after the opening faceoff.

Sandwiched between two tortuous near-misses for Moore was Gavrikov’s goal. Byfield recovered a shot and slid the puck high for the Russian defender, whose blast from above the left circle through a Laferriere screen became his third goal of 2024-25. Byfield’s assists, on this goal and both of Fiala’s, brought his totals to five in two games and eight points across five career games against Montreal.

“It felt like we were in control, and then we weren’t. Then, OK, we’ve control of it again, and then we don’t,” Hiller said. “I would like to say we just felt completely comfortable on the bench and there was great energy, but it was a little tense for some time, but I liked the response. We needed to score some big goals, and we did.”