Drew Doughty scores twice as Kings rally from a three-goal deficit to beat Coyotes
Drew Doughty scored his second goal of the game with 1:59 remaining and the Kings rallied from three goals down and beat the Arizona Coyotes 5-4 on Friday night.
Mikey Anderson, Quinton Byfield and Anze Kopitar also scored for the Kings, who got three goals in the third period to complete a comeback from a 4-1 deficit. Pheonix Copley was pulled after giving up three goals on six shots, and Cam Talbot finished with 17 saves.
Coyotes forward Matias Maccelli scored 37 seconds into the game, and J.J. Moser, Jack McBain and Sean Durzi scored in a 69-second span later in the first for the three-goal lead. The Kings controlled play the rest of the way and finally caught up in the third period. Karel Vejmelka had 34 saves.
Kevin Fiala had a goal and an assist, Anze Kopitar scored on the power play and had an assist, and the Kings defeated the Arizona Coyotes 6-3.
“We were very confident that if we played the right way, took care of defense, that we could come back in that game,” Doughty said. “We just came out really flat early. We were determined to come back and we never gave up. We know we can score. In the L.A. Kings’ organization since I’ve been here, we’ve been more of a defensive team.
“This year, it just feels like we can score at will. But we need to get back to fixing that defensive side of the puck.”
The Kings scored at least four goals in five of their last six games, including a 6-3 victory over the Coyotes in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Neither team had played since. The Coyotes entered as one of the eight teams to not have lost at home.
The Kings’ comeback began after Durzi put the Coyotes ahead 4-1 at 8:55 of the first period — on the first shot Talbot faced — with their third goal in 69 seconds.
Doughty’s power-play goal with 3:49 left in the second made it 4-2.
Byfield scored at 1:50 of the third period to pull the Kings within one — just 3 seconds after a power play expired — and Kopitar tied it at 4 on a wrist short from the right circle through a screen at 6:54.
Doughty’s slap shot from above the right circle capped a scoring to put the Kings ahead.
“The first shot on goal [after the goalie change] is in your net and now the momentum is really against you,” Kings coach Todd McClellan said. “But the team did a good job. We got to the break without giving up anything else, and then they took over. They had a discussion. That type of intensity. That type of directness from the group has to show up at the beginning of the game, not just when we’re trailing.”
The Kings outshot the Coyotes 39-23, and the Coyotes went almost 16 minutes without a shot on goal after Durzi’s goal. The Coyotes did not have another shot until Nick Schmaltz’s shot on a power play five minutes into the second.
In his 43rd season with the Kings, Nick Nickson tries to find the right balance for the television and radio audiences.
“You have to learn, because that league is a tough league,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “If you don’t learn, that will happen again. One game does not define how you are as a team. It’s how you bounce back from those games, and that will define how we are. The way we played tonight is uncharacteristic.”
Maccelli scored on a wrist shot from the right circle 37 seconds into the game and Anderson snapped a wrist shot past Vejmelka at 5:56 of the fast-paced first period before the Coyotes took their three-goal lead.
Moser controlled a puck on the right side of the net after Schmaltz’s shot bounced off the top of the goal and pushed it past Copley at 7:46. McBain scored 35 seconds later when he skated in front of the net and redirected a shot from Liam O’Brien.
Durzi made it 4-1 when he gathered the puck at the red line, spun past Doughty at the left circle and put a wrist shot past Talbot.
Up next for the Kings: vs. Vegas Golden Knights at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.
