The preseason is back, and the Los Angeles Kings opened it with a loss.
At Toyota Arena on Saturday night in the Empire Classic, the Kings fell 4-2 to the Vegas Golden Knights, with Jackson Hallum delivering the deciding goals for Vegas.
The first period started slowly on both sides. Los Angeles managed five shots in the opening frame, while Vegas had four, but the Golden Knights broke through after 18 quiet minutes when Viliam Kmec scored with assists from Marc Gatcomb and Matyas Sapovaliv. Less than a minute later, Raphael Lavoie extended the lead to 2-0 with help from Tanner Laczynski and Braeden Bowman.
“We gave up those two goals, but we all in here felt like we were in it,” Andre Lee said. “We knew that if we took the puck to the net and fired some more shots, it’s going to come.”
The Kings did answer before the period was over. Lee scored with assists from Kenny Connors and Scott Perunovich to cut the deficit to one.
The building was loud throughout the night, and the players noticed.
“They (the fans) really brought the energy,” Kenny Connors said. “They had some really good crowd pops, one of the loudest buildings I’ve heard here … So credit to them for coming out.”
The second period turned messy, with penalties piling up but no real payoff on the scoreboard. There was throwing equipment, elbowing, roughing, misconduct and tripping, yet neither team cashed in on its power-play chances.
Los Angeles finally drew even in the third when Lane Pederson scored with 7:54 left, with assists from Cole Guttman and Jared Wright. But the tie lasted only two minutes. Hallum put Vegas back in front off an assist from Kmec, then later sealed it with an empty-net goal after the Kings pulled Anton Forsberg for an extra attacker.
Los Angeles finished with 19 shots on goal and went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill. Vegas had 16 shots and killed off both of its penalties.
“There were some good things I thought we did here,” Kings coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s game one, there’s a lot of new bodies in there, different faces … Tonight I was happy with the effort, I thought they played hard.”