Vancouver Canucks Drop Fourth Straight in 4-1 Loss to Kings

Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images Adrian Kempe scored twice, and the Vancouver Canucks fell 4-1 to the Los Angeles Kings at Crypto. com Arena on Thursday night. Joel Armia and Trevor Moore also scored for Los Angeles, while Marcus Pettersson had Vancouver’s only goal in a game that slipped away a little more each period.

Positively for Kings fans, the bigger picture favored LA almost as much as the scoreboard did. Los Angeles won its third straight game, improved to 4-0-1 over its past five, and moved back into the second Western Conference wild-card spot. Anton Forsberg stopped 24 shots, and Artemi Panarin added two assists as the Kings kept getting exactly the kind of timely production playoff-chasing teams need in April.

From a Canucks’ fan perspective, the game felt like it was getting ahead of the team long before the score ever got out of hand. The Canucks stayed close on the board for a while, but the room for error felt tiny from the opening shift, and once the Kings got a lead back, it never really looked comfortable again. The flow of the game Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images At 1:29 of the first period, Brandt Clarke circled the net and found Kempe alone in the slot for a one-timer that beat Nikita Tolopilo.

The Canucks answered at 14:17 when Marcus Pettersson’s slap shot deflected in off Brian Dumoulin’s skate while Marco Rossi battled at the crease. It was a lucky bounce, sure, but it counted, and for a moment it looked like the Canucks had settled the game down, for about 91 seconds. Armia put Los Angeles back ahead at 15:48 after Jared Wright forced a neutral-zone turnover and Scott Laughton dropped the puck back for a clean shot from the high slot.