After getting back in the win column in copious fashion and setting a single-season record for home victories, the Kings will be back at Crypto.com Arena to confront the NHL-pacing Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday.
The Kings had a much-deserved day off after completing a daunting stretch of six games in nine days, which included not only four wins but three of their five highest-scoring games of the campaign, including the highest.
Last weekend, they slathered on 14 goals, their third and fourth seven-goal games of 2024-25, versus the Carolina Hurricanes and Boston Bruins. After a more modest 3-1 win and a low-wattage rest of the week with one goal in two losses, the Kings poured in a season-high eight scores against the San Jose Sharks on Sunday, including some stunners.
That emphatic mauling of the NHL’s worst team punctuated a franchise-best effort at home this season, with the three scoring sprees enlivening a stretch that’d seen many games that were all function and no style. Should the Kings win out on home ice, they’ll reach 33 victories, which would tie for the fourth most single-season home wins in NHL history.
“I wish we knew (what made us successful at home), we’d take it on the road,” Coach Jim Hiller said. “I can tell you one thing for sure, we don’t have a building full of Kings fans on the road. I would start with that.”
“The place got rocking,” he continued. “We haven’t talked about the play that (Andrei) Kuzmenko and (Vladislav) Gavrikov made, but that’s the nicest goal you’ll see as far as three people involved, and I thought the building erupted. Those are just good vibes; they like playing here.”
Kuzmenko, whom Hiller called “a great acquisition,” engineered that goal, the second of the night by Adrian Kempe, and had seven points in his past six games after providing less easily quantified contributions after his trade-deadline arrival.
Around this time last season, after Kuzmenko had been involved in his first of three trades in just over one year, he caught fire for the Calgary Flames, piling up 17 points in the final 11 games of the season between March 28 and April 18.
With Winnipeg coming into town, it’s hard not to harken back to the summer of 2023 and another acquisition, when the Kings and Jets made a massive exchange of players centered around Pierre-Luc Dubois. But beyond misspent assets and quandaries about what might have been, there figure to be few tangible traces from the trade in Tuesday’s tilt. Dubois is prospering anew in Washington and former Capital Darcy Kuemper has thrived well beyond expectation in Los Angeles.
Gabriel Vilardi, the centerpiece of the deal for the Jets, has enjoyed a fabulous campaign (61 points in 71 games) but one that was cut short by injury. He remained week-to-week with an upper body injury that Coach Scott Arniel told reporters was “not his ear,” alluding to a likely concussion, after a fluke play in the neutral zone where Vilardi was hit high with a puck. Rasmus Kupari, who also went from California to Manitoba in the swap, is dealing with a confirmed concussion.
That left only Alex Iafallo among the former Kings on Winnipeg’s active roster. He has a modest 13 goals this season but five of them have come in his past 11 games. That included a two-goal effort, his second of the season, in Friday’s 4-0 win over the New Jersey Devils, when Iafallo filled Vilardi’s spot on the top line.
That was goalie Connor Hellebuyck’s league-leading seventh shutout. He has powered the Jets to the NHL’s best points total, points percentage and goals-against average. They also rank second in power-play conversion rate and third in goals per game. They are tied for the most home wins and trail only Carolina for the most road victories this season.
Yet even with all those intimidating-on-paper factors, the two meetings on the ice have gone to the Kings this season. They beat the Jets 4-1 at home on Nov. 27 in their signature victory of the early going and then earned a rare road triumph against a contender, taking an overtime affair, 2-1, in Winnipeg on Jan. 10.
WINNIPEG AT KINGS
When: Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV/radio: FDSN West
