LOS ANGELES –– The Kings just confronted both teams from last year’s Western Conference Finals and next they’ll joust with a division winner currently in position to repeat, the Vegas Golden Knights, on Wednesday.
The Kings have had some quality wins lately, but have failed to use them as springboards. They beat the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 18. The Bolts haven’t lost since, prevailing in 10 straight showdowns, including a rematch with the Kings. But the Kings turned around and flopped against a pair of teams at the bottom of the standings, one of which just fired its coach.
They then took two games from the contending Minnesota Wild but couldn’t carry any momentum forward into two disappointing defeats, much as they didn’t build on Saturday’s gritty shootout victory over Edmonton in Monday’s flat offensive performance against Dallas.
In fact, the Kings haven’t won more than two consecutive games all season apart from one four-game push that concluded two months ago.
“I would say it’s a hard league. I would say it’s a really hard league, and, probably this year, it’s harder than it’s ever been. So, I would say there’s a lot of teams that have felt like, ‘Man, it’s hard to string games together,’” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “I know Vegas is on a little bit of a roll right now, but it’s a hard league to string games together. We’re trying. We’re trying and we’ve certainly come up short at home over this last little stretch where we’re right there at the end and we’ve found ways not to get one and given them up, and that makes it harder. It’s a good league, it’s a challenge every night, there’s some really good teams and we’re battling tooth-and-nail with them.”
Yet Hiller’s latest equivocating mea culpa, with the now-familiar language of hardship and defeatism so unbecoming of a professional hockey team, rang unconvincing.
Of the other 31 franchises in the NHL, 28 have enjoyed multiple streaks of three or more wins. Just the St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators and Edmonton Oilers have joined the Kings in failing to record two or more such surges, with only Edmonton holding a playoff spot presently.
Twenty-four of 31 have cobbled together at least four triumphs in a row, the Kings’ longest chain of victories this season.
The Kings have played 45 games, the preponderance of their campaign, and lost 13 of the past 20, 11 of the last 16 and three of their most recent four matches. Yet to hear Hiller tell it, they’re banging on the door.
“We’ll just keep playing well, and expect that it’s going to turn,” Hiller said.
That’s not unlike Kings president Luc Robitaille’s messaging of being “right there” after narrowly qualifying for the playoffs and being summarily booted from them in five games two years ago, or “we’re there,” Robitaille’s modified refrain that he defined as being one of roughly 10 teams with a legitimate shot at the Stanley Cup this season.
Corey Perry, a newcomer to the team, is already fitting right in with his rhetoric.
“We’re pushing, it’s right there,” said Perry, who earned the primary assist on the Kings’ lonesome goal Monday.
The Kings’ next test will be the Golden Knights, who are seeking their fifth Pacific Division crown in nine years of existence after winning No. 4 last season. They’re currently riding their third four-game winning streak of 2025-26.
Vegas at Kings
When: 7 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: TNT, truTV, HBO Max