Adrian Kempe scores twice as Kings beat Canucks, move closer to playoff berth
Adrian Kempe had two goals and an assist, Trevor Moore reached 30 goals for the first time in his career and the Kings got closer to wrapping up a playoff spot with a 6-3 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night.
The Kings moved out of a wild-card spot and into third place in the Pacific Division with five games remaining in the regular season. The Kings have a one-point lead over Vegas and are eight points up on St. Louis, which is still vying for a playoff spot.
“We’re excited. I think we’re also kind of paying attention to the standings,” said defenseman Drew Doughty, who had a goal and an assist. “We just want to move up as high as we possibly can. We don’t care who we face. We’re just worrying about ourselves.”
The Kings defeat San José 2-1 to increase their lead over the St. Louis Blues in the race for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Kevin Fiala also had a goal and an assist for Los Angeles, which has won three straight. Alex Laferriere also scored, Anze Kopitar had two assists and Cam Talbot stopped 39 shots.
Brock Boeser got his 39th goal for Vancouver. The forward is one away from becoming the 10th player in franchise history to reach 40 in a season.
Dakota Joshua and Teddy Blueger also scored and J.T. Miller extended his point streak to seven games with an assist. Casey DeSmith made 23 saves.
Vancouver leads Edmonton by five points with five games left to play, but the Oilers have two games in hand. The Canucks trail Dallas by three points for the top seed in the Western Conference.
“Didn’t give them a lot of stuff, but their conversion rate was great,” coach Rick Tocchet said. “We had some chances. We had a couple breakaways, we had somebody in the high slot if we could connect, and we gave them those freebies early, it’s 2-0.”
Kempe opened the scoring 2:48 into the game with a power play goal and then scored short-handed with 2:44 remaining for his fourth two-goal game this season.
Moore, who grew up in Thousand Oaks, got a pass from Phillip Danault and put a wrist shot into the short side of the net 10:35 into the third period to put the Kings up 5-2. It was Moore’s fourth goal in his last three games after he had a hat trick last Wednesday against Seattle.
The Kings converted their first two power-play opportunities on goals by Kempe and Doughty. The one-timer by Doughty midway through the first is the second time in his 16-year career he has reached 15 goals in a season. The defenseman’s career high was 16 during the 2009-10 season.
“That was great for the power play. We were not good at all in San José, so we needed a bounce-back,” interim coach Jim Hiller said. “I didn’t like the short-handed goal against. They had probably more zone time than we wanted them to have. But having said that, our defense did a great job in and around our net boxing them out, not a lot of second chances.”
Boeser got the Canucks to 2-1 midway through the first when he drove to the net and was able to flick it past Talbot. It was Boeser’s 17th goal in 20 career games against the Kings.
Jordan Spence’s one-timer from near the blue line deflected off Laferriere’s stick at 2:09 of the second period. Fiala then made it 4-1 six minutes later on a breakaway after he got a stretch pass from Kopitar in the offensive zone. DeSmith made a pad save on the first shot, but Fiala was able to knock in the rebound.
Blueger had a short-handed goal with 7:25 remaining in the game.
Up next for the Kings: at Ducks on Tuesday night.
