Moore's three goals key end of Kings' skid
LOS ANGELES » The Kings halted their three-game losing streak as Trevor Moore's hat trick spearheaded a 5-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday evening.
The win moved the Kings five points clear of the St. Louis Blues for the West's final wild-card berth and to within three points of the Vegas Golden Knights for the third playoff slot in the Pacific Division. Both St. Louis and Vegas were idle on Wednesday.
The Kraken had won three of four games prior to Wednesday's loss to help put an eight-game losing streak in their rearview mirror.
Moore represented the San Fernando Valley proudly with his trio of tallies. Kevin Fiala scored on a breakaway and assisted on Adrian Kempe's power-play goal. PierreLuc Dubois recorded his first three-point game as a King with three assists and Viktor Arvidsson added two helpers. Cam Talbot made 21 of 23 saves.
Andre Burakovsky and Brian Dumoulin each notched a goal for Seattle. Philipp Grubauer stopped 22 of 27 shots.
With 3:03 remaining in the game, Moore beat Jordan Eberle to a loose puck in the neutral zone and zoomed ahead to slip the puck through Grubauer's five hole, completing Moore's hat trick and the Thousand Oaks native one goal shy of 30 for the season.
The Kings and Kraken traded goals near the middle of the third period with the Kraken responding at the 11:20 mark to the Kings' insurance marker 35 seconds earlier.
Yanni Gourde stole the puck in the neutral zone, started a give-and-go play with Brandon Tanev that generated a shot for Gourde, recovered the puck and found Dumoulin behind the play to cut the visitors' deficit to 4-2.
The Kings had cushioned their lead after Blake Lizotte's diving shot block sent Fiala off to the races for an unassisted goal that saw him wait out Grubauer and roof the puck for goal No. 26 of the season.
The Kings seemed poised to check their way to a win but a double minor penalty for high-sticking to Lizotte, whose stick appeared to be lifted into Jared McCann's face by McCann himself, added intrigue to the final 20 minutes of the match.
Oliver Bjorkstrand nearly scored, striking the inside of the post, and then made a cross-crease pass to Burakovsky for a backhanded tapin goal with 14:20 to play.
The Kings headed to the second intermission with a three-goal lead — a situation that's now seen them win 30 of 34 times and earn at least a point in all 34 games — as they tripled their advantage off two goals from Moore at the 7:39 and 11:49 marks.
Moore got his second goal of the game after Arvidsson's takeaway in the neutral zone allowed him to move the puck ahead for Dubois, who found a trailing Moore for a snapshot and then a forehand-tobackhand finish on his followup bid.
His prior score came after he extended the Kings' attack by picking Tomas Tatar's pocket as he tried to exit Seattle's zone. That set off a sequence that culminated in Moore deflecting home Matt Roy's shot-pass from the left point to the right post.
Two teams with tempered approaches produced a predictably low-event first period, with the Kings earning the lone goal on the power play and killing a penalty of their own.
Fiala had lit up Burakovsky in the neutral zone but later on the same shift took a holding penalty. The Kings killed the penalty to preserve their one-goal edge.
They'd earned that advantage 9:24 into the game on a play where all five Kings skaters touched the puck that culminated with the Swedish connection between Arvidsson and Kempe in the slot for a redirection, his 24th goal of 2023-24. Fiala, a Swedish speaker, earned the secondary assist.