The LA Kings opened up a 2-0 series lead over the Edmonton Oilers with a 6-2 victory in Game 2 at Crypto.com Arena on Wednesday evening.
For the second straight game, the Kings started the scoring with a power-play goal. At the end of their man-advantage sequence, the hosts attacked in transition, as forward Warren Foegele slid his way down the left wing, gaining a step as he drove towards the net. Foegele sent a hard, low pass to the top of the crease and defenseman Brandt Clarke drove the net to bury his first goal of the playoffs, giving the hosts a 1-0 lead at the first intermission.
Early in the second period, Los Angeles doubled its advantage as forward Quinton Byfield scored for the second time in as many games. After the Kings won a battle along the boards, Byfield collected the puck and went in, 2-on-1, from a tight angle. The 6-5 centerman kept the puck himself, worked his way into the slot and shot off the post and in for his second goal of the series and a 2-0 advantage.
Back on the power play, the Kings increased their lead to three goals, as they scored for the fourth time in the series on the man advantage. Forward Anze Kopitar teed up forward Adrian Kempe at the center point for a one-timer and while the shot missed the net, it bounced hard off the endboards, directly to forward Andrei Kuzmenko beside the net, where he scored his second goal of the series, putting the Kings ahead 3-0.
Similar to Game 1, forward Leon Draisaitl got the visitors on the board with a second-period goal. Off an extended shift in the offensive zone, Edmonton worked the puck up high to defenseman John Klingberg, who was making his 2025 postseason debut. Klingberg sent a shot-pass towards the net, with Draisaitl getting an athletic deflection on the puck, sending it past Kings goaltender Darcy Kuemper to make it a 3-1 game.
Early in the second period, the Oilers made it a one-goal game as former Kings forward Viktor Arvidsson scored his first goal of the series for Edmonton. With defenseman Brett Kulak stationed at the center point, he sent a shot towards the net, with Arvidsson shaking loose in front to deflect it past Kuemper and in, bringing the visitors to within 3-2.
The Kings pushed back, however, as Kempe found the back of the net for the second consecutive game to restore the two-goal advantage. After Arvidsson misplayed the puck in his own zone, Kopitar dropped the puck to Kempe in the slot, uncovered. The Swede made no mistake as he picked his spot on the blocker side, beating Oilers goaltender Stuart Skinner clean for a 4-2 lead.
For the third time in the game on the man advantage, the Kings converted to pull ahead 5-2. Off of a good sequence of puck movement in the offensive zone, Kempe slide the puck to Fiala in the right-hand circle. Fiala then snapped a pass through a maze of bodies in front to Anze Kopitar at the back post as the captain buried his first goal of the series to put the Kings back ahead by three goals.
After the fifth goal, Edmonton made a goaltending change, with Calvin Pickard entering the game in place of Skinner.
On the first shot Pickard faced, Kempe scored his second goal and fourth point of the game to make it 6-2. Coming down the left wing off the rush, Kempe beat Pickard clean with a wrist shot, hitting the back bar and in for the game’s final goal, pushing the hosts ahead by four.
Hear from Kempe, Clarke, Foegele, defenseman Mikey Anderson and Head Coach Jim Hiller following tonight’s Game 2 victory.
Adrian Kempe & Mikey Anderson
Brandt Clarke
On the emotions of scoring his first career goal in the Stanley Cup Playoffs
It was awesome. The crowd erupted and it put us up 1-0, it was just awesome. My teammates were really happy for me as happy, I was happy for myself. It was just a cool moment. It’s an emotional game, who can kind of weather that the best is going to come out on top. Right when I got back to the bench, the guys were saying congratulations to me, but the coaches made sure, let’s get back to square one here, same job, you’ve got your next shift coming up here and I think I did a good job.
On how he saw the play develop leading to his goal
Foegs made a really good play on the wall, Phil kicked it out to him and he had a really good play to keep possession of the puck and slip by the D. Once I saw it was a 2-on-1, the D slid, so if he didn’t pass it, I would’ve understood if he just kept wheeling to the net, but he found that little hole there, slipped it to me and I was just firm on my stick. I knew I had to elevate the puck and I did, so I was happy with our execution. Mooresie made a good play of being the decoy, made the D kind of stay back with him, so I was all alone the front and just was really happy that it went in.
On the team getting a bit of a momentum boost from another early power-play goal
We were just excited, we were happy to get up one. We did good weathering the storm, they came out really hot, they had good possession out of the gates. When we got that power play, our first unit had really good execution, we had some good looks and then we got out there and we knew we only had 30 seconds, so we had to get something to the net and we did. We executed well. We were all pretty excited on the bench. It was just good that we kind of kept that we kind of kept that energy going in the second period.
On the energy in the building in helping to maintain home-ice advantage through two games
Definitely. We’re happy that the fans were so involved, they were so loud for us and we’re so grateful that they’re so passionate, so it was cool. We’re happy we could reward them and give them goals and give them something to celebrate. We’re really happy with our performance, I’m really happy with how the crowd showed out tonight.
Warren Foegele
On what has gone well for the Kings in opening up a 2-0 series lead at home
I think we’re just sticking to the plan. We’re being even keeled up there and when we get our opportunities, we’re capitalizing on them. Guys have got to keep doing that, keep getting pucks on net and keep sticking to the plan.
On the biggest difference between the third period tonight and the third period in Game 1
Yeah, I just thought we were more composed. We were taking deep breaths. I know they scored that one there, and we took a deep breath on the bench, and then we come out and core one to get the lead again. It’s just staying even keeled, especially during the playoffs. You can’t be too high and you can’t be too low.
On maintaining home-ice advantage through the first two games of the series
It’s been huge all year for us. You know, we love playing in this building, we love playing in front of our fans. I don’t really know what else, how to describe it, but it’s just a feeling. We really enjoy playing here.
On handling the primary matchup tonight against McDavid and Draisaitl
They’re the best players in the world. They’re so dynamic, you know you’ve got to respect them but you can’t respect them too much. It’s an opportunity for us to go against them and they’re obviously going to make plays because they’re so good, but you try to limit them as much as we can but they’re such good players that you know what’s going to happen too.
Jim Hiller
On another strong performance in Game 2, taking a 2-0 series lead
We’ve played really well, I like how we’ve played. We’ve finished pretty well, if you score that many goals. I thoguht tonight in particular, we had some shots alone with the goaltender and beat him, we finished really well, so there’s some different things that go into when you’re finishing well, score goes up a little quicker. Just generally, overall, we’re playing pretty good, solid hockey, offensively and defensively, I think both parts are there.
On the Kings handling the transition from regular season hockey to playoff hockey
For those who follow us, the local media, we’ve had a pretty good season and really the second half of the season, I think we really started to get our footing. We like the additions to the team. I think there was a priority on probably some size and maybe a little bit grittier players, stronger players added into the mix this year by our General Manager. I think the regular season probably went as well as it did based on that. That’s a little bit more a playoff style of hockey. So I think we’ve just carried it over. I think we established it in the regular season and carried it into the playoffs.
On the decision to go 11/7 tonight
That’s a good question. I’m not going to get into all that this time of the year. I usually try to give you guys a pretty fair assessment during the regular season when we do that, I’m not going to give you everything that went into it for tonight. Some guys didn’t play that much. Moverare didn’t play that much, Helenius didn’t play that much. We’ll keep that one to ourselves, but we’ve done it enough times that we know we’re comfortable playing with 11 and 7. We’ll see where the next game is, could be 12 and [6], could be 11 and 7, but I’m not going to give you any insight into tonight.
On continued emphasis on the special teams battle
We talked about it before the series began, we all had a few days to talk about what the series might look like. If you just reflect back to, I’ll just go back one year, their power play is really good and we didn’t score a power play goal last year in the series and that was a big difference. That clearly was going to have to be an emphasis for us this year and I think both the power play and the penalty kill, thus far it’s been two games, it’s performed pretty well.
on the importance of getting another early power-play goal, specifically from the second unit
It did and that was our second group, right, they don’t play a lot, so I really thought that was a big goal. It really did, that we got that boost from that group on an entry. Clarkie, we’ve been telling him all year, make sure you’re not going up in the play too, too often on the power play breakout and he was set up to get in there, so it worked pretty well for him.
On the play of Joel Edmundson in Game 2
He was really, in particular tonight, I thought played fine in that first game, but I thought tonight in particular, he was really good. He bumped into a few people with some aggression and he’s just a stabilizing force. He’s got a really good, I didn’t know this about him, just got a great voice in the room, getting ready to go to start a period. I hear his voice a lot. it’s his first year on the team, might have took him a little while, but he’s certainly taking charge of that now and he just backs it up with the way he plays.
Notes – • Forward Adrian Kempe (2-2=4) notched two helpers and two goals tonight, giving him eight points (4-4=8) over his last three playoff games, dating back to May 1, 2024. Kempe’s seven points (3-4=7) through the past two games of this series are the most by any skater in the League postseason. His four points tonight marks a playoff career-high for the native of Kramfors, Sweden. • Captain Anze Kopitar (1-3=4) scored his first goal of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs in the midst of recording his second, third, and fourth assists of the series, his 25th, 26th, and 27th career home playoff assists. Kopitar joins Luc Robitaille (26A) and Wayne Gretzky (38A) as the only Kings skaters to reach the quarter-century mark on home ice. Kopitar (21PPA) also tied teammate Drew Doughty for the third most postseason power play assists in franchise history. • The captain’s third career three-plus-point playoff effort ties Dave Taylor (3x) for the third most such games in franchise history. Only Wayne Gretzky (6x) has more playoff four-point games as a King than Kopitar (2x). • Kopitar also joins Luc Robitaille (10x) and Dave Taylor (11x) as the only Kings skaters to score a goal in 10-or-more different postseasons. • Kempe and Kopitar become the first set of Kings teammates to each record four points in the same playoff game since Game 2 of the 1992 Division Semifinals when Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey did so in a Kings 8-5 victory against the Oilers, per NHL PR. • Defenseman Brandt Clarke (1-0=1) scored his first career Stanley Cup Playoff goal, becoming the first defenseman selected in the 2021 NHL Draft to score a postseason goal. Clarke (22 years, 73 days) became the second-youngest player in the past decade to score a playoff goal for the Kings, behind Quinton Byfield (1-0—1 in Game 5 of 2023 R1; 20 years, 249 days). The most goals in a single postseason by a Kings player age 22 or younger is held by Tyler Toffoli (7 in 2014), per NHL PR. • Forward Quinton Byfield (1-0=1) scored his second goal of the playoffs to open the scoring in the Kings’ second consecutive six-goal night. Byfield has now scored nine points (3-6=9) over his last nine Stanley Cup Playoff games, dating back to April 25, 2023. Byfield’s third career playoff goal enters him into the top five amongst forwards selected in the 2020 NHL Draft, tying New Jersey’s Dawson Mercer. • Forward Andrei Kuzmenko (1-1=2) scored his second goal and collected his third assist of the playoffs, extending his goal streak to two games and bringing his total to five points (2-3=5) over his first pair of Stanley Cup Playoff appearances. • Kuzmenko becomes the first Kings player to score a power play goal in back-to-back playoff games since Drew Doughty and Fredrik Modin each accomplished the feat in the First Round of the 2009-10 postseason. The native of Yakutsk, Russia, is the ninth player in franchise history to strike on the man-advantage in consecutive postseason appearances.
• Kuzmenko (7-14-21 in 24 GP) has the most points (regular season & playoffs combined) among all players that were acquired on NHL Trade Deadline Day this season, ahead of Mikko Rantanen (5-13=18 in 22 GP).
The Kings are scheduled to travel to Edmonton tomorrow, in advance of Game 3 on Friday and the team will not practice. The Kings will return to the ice for morning skate on Friday, April 25 at Rogers Place in Alberta.
