The Kings’ early-season skid got heavier Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena, where Edmonton rolled to a 4-1 win and handed Los Angeles its fifth straight game without a victory to open the 2026-27 season.
It was a rough first period that set the tone. The Oilers struck first when Connor McDavid took advantage of a dropped Kings stick in the Los Angeles zone, curled around the outside and fed Leon Draisaitl, who finished for his fourth goal of the season and a 1-0 lead.
Only a minute later, Edmonton cashed in again on a Drew Doughty tripping penalty. McDavid raced down the left side on the power play, got past Mikey Anderson and forced a rebound that Vasily Podkolzin knocked in for his sixth goal of the season.
And before the opening 20 minutes were done, McDavid added another one. Ty Emberson lifted the puck out of the Edmonton zone, McDavid collected it coming off the bench, skated in alone and beat Darcy Kuemper with a backhand move for a 3-0 Oilers lead. Los Angeles then went to Anton Forsberg in goal after the first period.
The Kings finally got on the board late in the second when Brandt Clarke scored his first goal of the season. Clarke worked his way into space at the top of the offensive zone and sent a shot from the center point that deflected off Devon Levi’s arm and in, cutting the deficit to 3-1 with 4:00 gone in the period.
That was as close as Los Angeles would get. Edmonton added an empty-net goal with a little over two minutes left to lock it down.
Trevor Moore didn’t hide the frustration afterward.
“I mean the belief is there in our group, but it’s just not at all good enough right now. Concern is, it’s tough, because like I said, I believe in our in our group, but it’s just not f-ing good enough right now.
We’ve got to figure it out fast. Positive is that there’s a lot of games left.
We’ve got to turn the page and we’ve got to figure it out.”
Moore also pointed to the Kings’ slow start as a recurring issue.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s just mental lapses in the first and it feels like every game we’re having those. We’re just making little mistakes here and there that’s just costing us games and there’s really no excuse for it.”
Los Angeles did pile up chances, but not nearly enough finishing touch.
“Usually when you get a lot of shots and not a lot of production, it just means you weren’t hungry enough around the net. We’ve got to get there, we’ve got to get in the goalie’s eyes.
He made a lot of good saves, but a lot of them looked to me like they were pretty clear shots. Then, Clarkie’s goal was a good screen by Juice and usually that’s a difference.”
McDavid’s first-period damage was another sore spot.
“Yeah, it’s really disappointing. It sucks chasing a game like that.
It sucks letting their best players have, I don’t want to say easy nights, but they got whatever they had four points or whatever. That sucks and that’s on us.”
Peter Laviolette said the Kings didn’t do enough from the start.
“It’s frustrating because you’re not winning hockey games. Certainly not the way we wanted to start with the first period.
I don’t think we gave up a whole lot at all, but the ones that we gave up was to a world-class player and it ends up in the back of the net. So, there’s things that we need to do to be better and we continue to press for the entire game.
We can’t catch the game at that point.”
He also praised Edmonton’s top group.
“I thought that they were, with the puck, I thought that they were dominant at times, trying to generate in the offensive zone. They played hard.”
The shot total told part of the story, but not enough of it for Laviolette.
“I feel like we had more than enough looks tonight, so it’s got to find its way into the back of the net. At the end of the night, there’s 40 shots and 20 plus chances on net. It’s just got to find its way into the back.”
The coach said the goaltending swap after one period was simply a change of course.
“For me, at that point, you’re 3-0 in the period and it’s just that we had to change things up.”
And while he didn’t think the whole night collapsed in one stretch, he pointed to the execution gap that doomed the Kings anyway.
“I don’t think that the whole period just lapsed. Like I said, they have a couple of elite players that can hurt you and attack you if you’re not on point.
First goal, we broke a stick and ended up with duplication as we’re trying to hand the stick off to the defenseman. When we come out of it, we end up with duplication on one side of the ice.
Power-play goal, kind of an individual effort with a lot of speed coming at us. So, there’s things that we can do better, but the point after the first period, for me was it’s not good enough.
We’re down 3-0. We’ve got to be cleaner.
We’ve got to be better. We’ve got to bury offensively.
The chances that we had, I thought we leaned on that in the second period to generate more and still push in the third, but we couldn’t find one.”
There were a few milestones buried in the loss. Brandt Clarke’s goal was his first of the season and his first career regular-season goal against Edmonton.
Scott Laughton, who was playing in his 750th career regular-season game, picked up his first point of the year with the primary assist, and Trevor Moore added his first assist of the campaign on Clarke’s tally. Doughty also moved past Ken Daneyko for sole possession of 23rd place on the NHL’s all-time games played list by a defenseman, and Laviolette passed Ken Hitchcock for eighth all-time in regular-season games coached.
The Kings are back at practice Thursday, October 15 at 11 AM at Toyota Sports Performance Center.
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