LOS ANGELES — All the Kings’ men were present at Crypto.com Arena on Thursday night, but their castle was stormed just the same by the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-1, on another evening of low-wattage offense for the hosts.
Trevor Moore scored the Kings’ only goal as they were held to two or fewer for the seventh time in the past nine games. Drew Doughty (foot) and Warren Foegele (upper-body) returned to action to give the Kings one of hockey’s rarities, a full complement of players. They asked a lot from goalie Darcy Kuemper and he gave them 34 saves.
Connor Bedard and Wyatt Kaiser each scored for Chicago, while Frank Nazar chipped in two assists. Spencer Knight repelled 26 pucks.
Chicago won for just the second time in eight games, and the Kings have also dropped six of their last eight decisions.
“You’ve just got to hope one goes off your (posterior) or your chest or something like that,” Foegele said of the Kings’ offensive struggles against an opponent that recently gave up nine goals to the last-place Buffalo Sabres. “There’s not much room out there, but you’ve just got to work hard, and find a way.”
Thursday’s match unraveled in the second period for the Kings, though early, frequent, late and ubiquitous futility on the power play exacerbated matters.
They were 0 for 3 in the first period and 0 for 5 in the game, including a 6-on-4 advantage for the final 1:26 of the clash. They have scored on only five of their past 63 power-play opportunities.
The first period was kept scoreless largely by the grace of Kuemper, who made 13 saves, including an athletic cross-crease denial of Andre Burakovsky.
“The first period was terrible, and that might be polite,” Coach Jim Hiller said. “We were fortunate we had a goaltender.”
Kuemper continued to make challenging stops in the second period, including on Bedard in the slot and Nazar’s partial breakaway. But he and the Kings couldn’t keep Chicago off the board during their first full power play of the night, at 6:17, or following an agonizing series of events for Phillip Danault in the final gasp of the period.
After Joel Edmundson was sent to the box, Bedard owned the moment. He won the draw and played pitch-and-catch with Tyler Bertuzzi before crashing the net with total disregard for the presence of Cody Ceci and Foegele. He received a return pass and stuffed the puck inside the back post.
Bedard’s 18th goal of the season tied him with Sidney Crosby for third in the NHL. The 20-year-old has 16 goals and 16 assists for 32 points in his past 19 games, second in the league behind Nathan MacKinnon in scoring during that stretch.
“He’s taken that big step this year to the next level. This isn’t a good start, this is what he is, we see it on a nightly basis,” Chicago coach Jeff Blashill said.
Not one but two puck-handling gaffes by Knight left Danault staring wide-eyed at a wide-open net. He couldn’t reach the first pass into the slot and then he couldn’t push the puck across the line before Connor Murphy intervened all but divinely.
Danault, on the other hand, might be cursed. He had another sterling opportunity in the first period but remained goalless in his past 35 games, dating to last season.
“The whole team is pulling for Phil. He had about five good chances tonight, it wasn’t just those,” Hiller said. “The whole bench, guys want him to score, we all do, but despite [not scoring], I thought he had his best game of the year tonight.”
Adding insult to injury, the Blackhawks beat the buzzer with a goal by Kaiser following a miscue by Brian Dumoulin. After Bertuzzi and Oliver Moore grinded out the forecheck, Moore set up Nazar for a one-timer. Though he fanned, he alertly gathered the puck and found Kaiser zipping past Corey Perry to make it 2-0.
“It was a big moment of the game. We had a close call and they came down and were able to score late,” Kuemper said. “Our response to it was probably our best 20 [minutes] of the game, no doubt, no one was feeling sorry for (themselves).”
With 9:21 before the final horn, Moore broke up Knight’s shutout and added intrigue to the affair. After Moore stripped Bedard, Foegele skated the puck down, securing possession behind the net. His backhand feed found Moore gliding ahead for a shot that banked off Knight and in for his fourth goal of the season.
During the final minute of five-on-five hockey, Kuemper and Knight exchanged stellar saves. Kuemper denied Bedard at one end and Knight stoned Alex Laferriere at the other.
A late penalty to Bedard put the Kings up one skater and Kuemper’s sprint to the bench gave them a two-man advantage.
They had three shot attempts, two that were blocked by Murphy and one that turned out to be friendly fire, ending the game with a sad whimper.
“Maybe we were better before than we are now,” Hiller said. “We got frustrated when we were 16, 17, 18% in the league. Over the last while, trying to tweak it, trying to work on it, we haven’t gotten any results from that whatsoever, so, it’s disappointing, extremely.”
The teams will meet again Saturday night in the same arena.