Kings clinch playoff berth for 5th consecutive season, defeat Kraken 5-3
Brady Charette
Host · Writer
SEATTLE — For the fifth consecutive season, the Los Angeles Kings are heading to the Stanley Cup Playoffs after defeating the Seattle Kraken 5-3 at Climate Pledge Arena on Monday.
Coming into the day, Los Angeles needed a win in the Pacific Northwest and a regulation loss by the Nashville Predators to secure a postseason spot. The San Jose Sharks, behind a two-goal night from Macklin Celebrini, snapped a 15-game losing streak to Predators and ended Nashville’s playoff hopes.
In a rollercoaster season marked by a midseason coaching change, an NHL record number of overtime games and captain Anze Kopitar’s final campaign, Los Angeles silenced the noise and clinched a playoff berth in the Western Conference.
The postseason appearance will mark the 11th and final Stanley Cup Playoff for Kopitar, who is set to retire after 20 seasons with Los Angeles. The 38-year-old is the all-time scoring leader in the history of the Kings franchise with 452 goals and 862 assists in his illustrious career.
With the victory, Los Angeles pushed their winning streak to five games — the longest of the season. LA collected its sixth straight victory when scoring first and moved to 28-6-7 on the season when notching the first goal. The Kings also improved to 25-2-0 this season when leading after two periods.
Quinton Byfield scored his 21st and 22nd goals of the season in the first period, marking his fifth consecutive road games with multiple points. The 23-year-old now sits just one goal shy of matching his career high (23) set last season. Byfield joins Luc Robitaille (1992-93) as the only Kings skaters to post five straight multi-point road games in a single season.
With the top two injured and the third unavailable, Seattle turned to its fourth goaltender in Nikke Kokko who made his third career appearance and second start of the season. The 22-year-old from Finland earned his first win in Seattle’s 4-1 victory over Calgary on Saturday and saved 25 of 29 shots in Monday’s loss to Los Angeles.
Anton Forsberg made his fourth consecutive start in the crease for LA and collected his 16th win of the season. After shutting down Seattle in the first two periods, the Kraken put three shots in the back of the net in the last frame and provided an intense finish.
After Seattle responded with back-to-back goals in the third period to cut the deficit to one, Anze Kopitar fed Adrian Kempe on a two-on-one odd man rush and doubled the Los Angeles lead. The score marked a team-high 35th goal on the season for Kempe and gave the Los Angeles right-winger his 13th point in his last nine games.
Alex Laferriere tapped in his 20th goal of the season on an empty-netter with 1.3 seconds remaining to slam the door on Los Angeles’ fifth straight victory.
Remarkably, the Kings had a slim 6% chance of making the playoffs back on March 6 sitting at 25-22-14 through 61 games. Now, they’ll have their chance to win a playoff series for the first time in 12 years since their Stanley Cup victory over the New York Rangers back in 2014.
Los Angeles improved to 20-9-10 away from Crypto.com Arena and have collected 50 of their 89 points on the road this season.
With two games remaining in the regular season, Los Angeles will have an opportunity to climb out of the 8th seed with victories over Vancouver and Calgary with some help from around the Pacific Division.
Puck drop for Tuesday’s matchup against Vancouver is set for 7 p.m.
