Kings Set Franchise Record for Home Wins with 8-1 Victory Over Sharks

The Los Angeles Kings set a franchise record for home wins in a season with an 8-1 victory against the San Jose Sharks at Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. The Kings are 27-4-4 at home, surpassing their previous best of 26 home wins in the 1990-91, 2005-06, 2015-16, and 2022-23 seasons.

Adrian Kempe and Warren Foegele each scored twice, Anze Kopitar had three assists, and Andrei Kuzmenko added a goal and two assists for the Kings (41-23-9), who moved two points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for second place in the Pacific Division. David Rittich made 22 saves.

Los Angeles had lost its previous two games but is 10-3-0 in its past 13 games.

“I think we showed up and showed good character through the 60 minutes, which was fun to watch,” Kempe said.

Cam Lund scored for the second consecutive game, and Georgi Romanov made 28 saves for the Sharks (20-44-9), who have lost four of their last six games.

“When you lose, you obviously learn a lot,” San Jose rookie defenseman Luca Cagnoni said. “It’s all about playing hard, making hard plays.”

The Kings took a 1-0 lead at 5:35 of the first period when Phillip Danault scored on a one-timer from the right circle, set up by Quinton Byfield just after a power play expired. Kempe made it 2-0 at 15:13 on a one-timer from the slot off a pass from Kopitar, with three San Jose penalty killers between them.

It was Kempe’s 30th goal in 73 games, reaching the 30-goal mark for the third time in his NHL career and the third time in the last four seasons. He becomes the 12th Kings player to have at least three 30-goal seasons.

“You start putting seasons like that together in a row, and you start to become one of the elite goal scorers in the League,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said.

Lund shot the rebound of Mario Ferraro’s long shot into an open net after a kick save by Rittich at 4:52 of the second period to cut it to 2-1. It was Lund’s second NHL goal and point in three career games.

Trevor Moore pushed the lead back to 3-1 at 6:57 with a wrist shot from just outside the crease off a between-the-legs backhand pass from Kopitar.

“It’s a defensive breakdown that we specifically talked about this morning, which is frustrating about that,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “I think a little bit of it is our D-core has changed quite a bit, so there’s some miscommunication with some areas of our game because our team has changed a lot. And that’s something that I’ve got to do a better job of, getting our guys on the same page and how we need to be more connected in all three zones.”

Foegele made it 4-1 at 13:31, putting in Brandt Clarke’s rebound after his screen prevented Romanov from catching the shot from the blue line cleanly on the power play. It was Foegele’s first special teams goal of the season.

Foegele got his second goal at 19:03 by redirecting Mikey Anderson’s shot to make it 5-1, and Kempe scored his second 35 seconds later on a one-timer from Vladislav Gavrikov to make it 6-1.

Foegele set a career high with 22 goals this season in 73 games. He had 20 goals in 82 games for the Edmonton Oilers last season.

“It just seems like last year, he started to score some, say, nice, say, more difficult [goals], but required a larger skill set than he did earlier, and I think we’ve seen that now,” Hiller said. “I think he’s got a good shot. I think he can get into places with his edges. Not afraid to go to the net; of course, that’s how he’s going to get most of them. It takes some time to get really comfortable in the League in a goal-scoring role, so I think we’ll continue to see that going forward.”

Kuzmenko made it 7-1 with a wrist shot from the slot at 14:49 of the third period, and Trevor Lewis beat Romanov with a wrist shot through traffic at 15:22 for the 8-1 final.

The eight goals were a season high for Los Angeles.

“I mean, we’ve had a couple of games where we score a lot,” Kempe said. “It’s hard to say why, but I think we’ve done a good job of creating chances. Sometimes the puck goes in for you.”

Notes: Kopitar has 42 assists, becoming the 15th player in NHL history with 15 or more seasons of 40 assists. Kopitar now has 458 career assists, passing Gilbert Perreault for 29th in NHL history.