Kevin Fiala extends hot streak as Kings beat Stars in shootout

LOS ANGELES — A seesaw affair that saw a winning goal nullified with 36 seconds remaining in overtime still left the Kings elated by a 5-4 victory in a shootout with the Dallas Stars on Friday night at Crypto.com Arena.

Warren Foegele, Kevin Fiala, Alex Laferriere and Anže Kopitar each scored a goal for the Kings. Fiala added an assist, as well as a shootout goal, and Phillip Danault had two assists. David Rittich stopped 26 shots.

Matt Duchene scored two goals for the Stars and set up Thomas Harley’s tally to earn his 500th career assist, with Mavrik Bourque tacking on a goal. Jake Oettinger made 33 saves.

The Kings won for the 12th time in 13 opportunities at home, while the Stars have now followed their five-game surge with a pair of losses in Southern California after falling to the Ducks on Tuesday. They had beaten the Kings by three or more goals in four straight meetings, but the Kings have now defeated Dallas in both matchups this season.

“We beat them early in the year, but they smoked – they beat us pretty good (in that one). We got lucky, we kind of stole the game,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “This is the best we’ve played against them, and I thought it was one of our best games of the year.”

Adrian Kempe scored to open the shootout and Fiala followed by converting to put Dallas down 2-0 with the only two goals in the shootout. It was apropos that Fiala finished the job, given that he had come an eyelash from deciding the result in OT.

Overtime provided a fitting bonus session for perhaps the Kings’ most entertaining display so far this season. Fiala appeared to win the game with 36.4 seconds to play, but his searing one-timer was taken off the board due to what was deemed goaltender interference by Drew Doughty after a video review.

“The overtime (disallowed goal) was just an unbelievable play by (Quinton Byfield) and (Fiala). I think Fiala was trying to keep his two-goal streak alive,” Laferriere said. “It was unfortunate it got called back, but he’s such a big-time player, and to do that in the shootout was pretty special.”

Kopitar had not scored since his two-goal performance against Philadelphia on Dec. 29, but he picked the perfect moment to break out of his dry spell by redirecting Kempe’s pass into the net for his 13th goal of 2024-25 with 8:20 left in regulation. The fortunate break was Kopitar’s 432nd career goal, breaking a tie with Dave Taylor for the third-most in franchise history.

“I think he would say that he was a little more patient than he’d like to be on that one. It’s nice to see it,” Hiller said. “Sometimes you get into that funk. It goes that long, and you wonder, ‘Am I ever going to get one again?’”

The Stars had taken their first lead of the night with consecutive markers by Bourque (6:53) and Duchene (9:51).

Duchene scored his second goal of the game when he skated directly at Doughty and roofed a wrist shot far side without breaking stride.

Bourque deposited the Stars’ second rebound goal of the night when he drove the net to find a Jamie Benn shot that clanked calamitously off Rittich’s left leg.

After 40 minutes, the Kings led 3-2 thanks to a goal-of-the-year candidate and a gritty effort to regain the lead following an opportunistic score by Dallas.

Byfield recovered the puck just after Dallas took full possession of it, keying a sequence that set him up with a one-timer trailing the play. Though his shot attempt thudded off the end boards, it hit Oettinger’s skate and came to Laferriere for the Kings’ second tap-in tally of the evening. His 14th goal broke a tie at 11:43 that resulted from the teams trading goals at the 9:29 and 8:16 marks.

The Stars pulled even for the second time after they won a protracted board battle and made that possession count. Cody Ceci’s point blast produced a juicy rebound and Harley, who had smoked Trevor Moore for position, picked up the loose change.

That avenged a jaw-dropping goal by Fiala.

Dallas defenseman Liam Bichsel was smarting from a blocked shot and left without a stick while isolated with Fiala, who spun Bischel around completely with his stickhandling before launching a shot between Bischel’s legs and up over the shoulder of Oettinger. Fiala now has 21 goals for the season and five in his past three games as part of a stretch with 13 points in 11 games.

“He got sick on the road, so he had a couple games where he had zero energy, so you can take those out of the equation,” Hiller said. “For two weeks, (this has been) some of his best hockey.”

Momentum shifted from the Kings to the Stars late in the first period, allowing the visitors to head to the dressing room with a stalemate.

Dallas piled up the final six shots of the frame and forged together a sequence in which they had six shot attempts in nine seconds with Rittich under siege. Though the Kings survived that onslaught in the final minute, they allowed a buzzer-beater to knot the score.

Duchene received the puck back from Brendan Smith, who fought the Kings’ Tanner Jeannot after the period concluded, and went to work. Duchene’s spin move combined with a slight bump from Mikael Granlund shook Joel Edmundson, while Vladislav Gavrikov hedged to take away inside ice, opening up a shooting angle for Duchene’s equalizer with two seconds showing on the clock.

It took just 11 seconds for the Kings to score when Danault banked a shot off Oettinger’s pad that found Foegele for his 13th goal of the campaign.

UP NEXT

The Kings play host to the Ducks on Saturday night in both teams’ final game before the Four Nations Face-Off break.