The LA Kings (14-10-9) cut their third period deficit down to one, but weren’t able to find a late equalizer on Wednesday night, falling to the Florida Panthers (18-13-2) by a score of 3-2 at Amerant Bank Arena.

Joel Armia tallied a power play goal in the first period during the contest, while Kevin Fiala was credited with his 12th strike of the season and goaltender Anton Forsberg stopped 25 shots between the pipes in a losing effort.

The Kings got on the board first when Armia converted during a man-advantage at 13:39, scoring after a high-sticking call to Florida’s Sam Bennett. Alex Laferriere fed Brandt Clarke for a shot from the point that Armia redirected from in between the circles through a net-front screen by Corey Perry for his eighth goal of the year.

LA skated into the first intermission with a 1-0 lead after also killing off a pair of penalties to Armia in the opening 20.

Things changed quickly in the second, as the Panthers evened the game at 1-1 just 2:14 into the period, scoring a power play goal of their own. It was Anton Lundell who tipped the puck past Forsberg for his 11th goal of the year.

Florida followed up their strike with three more quality chances in quick succession, each of which was saved by Forsberg. Then, after the Kings’ netminder kept the game even, Fiala missed the net on a clean breakaway opportunity at the other end of the ice.

The Panthers went in front for the first time at 7:04 of the second and held that advantage into the locker room for the second intermission. A scramble in front of the Kings’ net led to a tally for Carter Verhaeghe, who knocked the puck to the crease before it ricocheted behind Forsberg.

Later in the frame, the Kings had a power play opportunity when Florida’s Noah Gregor was called for holding, but Adrian Kempe was called for slashing 15 seconds later when he broke up a shorthanded rush into the LA end. During 4-on-4 play, it was Trevor Moore’s turn for a breakaway chance, but his move was stopped by Panthers’ goaltender Daniil Tarasov.

The Kings had two other looks to tie the game before the end of the second that hit the post, including attempts by Perry and Joel Edmundson.

Florida added to its lead with an insurance goal by Sam Bennett just 10 seconds into the third period when Brad Marchand directed the puck toward the net for a deflection. The puck went off Bennett and up high over Forsberg’s shoulder to make it a 3-1 lead for the home team.

But the Kings wouldn’t go quietly, and got back within one with some puck luck of their own. At 4:48 of the third, Florida’s Gustav Forsling attempted to move the puck up the ice. His feed bounced off the skate of Fiala and redirected past Tarasov to make it a 3-2 game.

LA had multiple opportunities in the second half of the final period, including a power play with three minutes remaining that allowed them to pull Forsberg in exchange for an extra attacker and a 6-on-4 look, but couldn’t pull even.

Tarasov earned the win in the crease for the Panthers with 27 saves. LA ended the game with a 29-28 edge in shots on goal, while both clubs scored once on the man-advantage and ended with identical 1-for-4 percentage.

Postgame thoughts from Laferriere and Mikey Anderson, as well as head coach Jim Hiller, are below.

Alex Laferriere

Mikey Anderson
On the way the team played overall in the game
Tonight, even in Dallas, I thought overall, it’s pretty solid games both nights. But, if you’re not getting points, it feels almost useless. I know no one’s really happy. Obviously you’re happy with the way you play, but if you don’t win, it doesn’t really make you feel any better for having a good game. So I think it’s one, two bounces, but we need those to go our way if we want to go where we want to go.

On the play of Anton Forsberg over the past few weeks
He’s been great all year. Whenever he’s been in, he’s been good. Last game, again, comes in in a tough situation, cold and thought he was good. And again, same thing tonight, made some big saves when we need him too. So it’s good when you can get a guy like him and you have Darcy and even Copper now behind us, you feel comfortable to go out there and play, and they make it easier for us.

On puck luck and bounces not going the Kings way
I mean, it’s the way it goes. Obviously, we get one today off them trying to shoot it out of the zone and somehow goes in. So maybe we feel like we haven’t gotten a lot of those, but at the end of the day, we’ve had other chances to score, and maybe we don’t find a way, or we have got a chance to break up a play in the other way, and we don’t. End of the day, it comes back to us finding different ways to either put it in, keep it out and get points.

On the desperation level the team will have in Thursday’s game
Every game, I feel like now, you look at how tight everything is from top to bottom, you lose one or two games, and you can go down four or five spots. Obviously, we don’t want to come out of here with nothing. We had a great road trip last time. We’ve been pretty good on the road all year. Again, we like what we’re doing, but it’s results based. So we got to find a way to come out tomorrow and get two points.

Jim Hiller
On how he felt his team played in a losing effort
It’s a competitive game. When you play those guys, you’re going to be challenged physically, and that’s not just, body checks, it’s puck battles, it’s trying to get to the net, it’s trying to keep them from the net. I thought we were toe to toe with them. We’re down by one in the end, when the whistle goes.

On what the team needs to do to get the result they want
Well, we’ve talked about it quite a bit. We hit three posts. We missed three breakaways, and there were some other chances from deflections, and we were around their net. We got a lucky bounce on Kevin’s but you would expect that one of those other six you might find a way to get to the back of the net. But what I really liked tonight, versus the Dallas game, which I thought we played well for 40 minutes, was our third period was probably our best period tonight. So we didn’t go away. We came with some energy, with some compete. And if we can keep doing that, you just have to believe, I know we sound like a broken record. You just have to believe we’re gonna start scoring some goals.

On the way Kopitar and the team was playing early in the game
He was really good on the faceoffs again, the Dallas night, he was big in the faceoffs. I thought we had everybody going. I really did, you don’t play a team like that, toe to toe without having your whole team going well. There’s big moments and you got to make a play in a big moment. And in the end, we had some of those chances right, late in last five, six minutes the game and we couldn’t do it. But give their goalie credit too, I mean, he played a pretty solid game.

On the goal the power play unit scored in the first period
Clarke did a nice job sliding in the middle. We got two big guys, you’ve got Perry and Armia. I thought Perry tipped it, but in fact, was Armia in the middle. You’ll take that look every time. Those guys got have good hand eye coordination. So, yeah, that’s the type of goal we need.

On the importance of Thursday’s game in Tampa Bay
Well, critical. We got to get a rest. We got to shake this one off. We’ve got to get on the plane. We’ve got to do all this stuff to get ready to go play another good game, another good team tomorrow.

Notes –
-Forward Joel Armia (1-0=1) scored his eighth goal of the campaign to open the offense in tonight’s contest. Armia’s eighth goal breaks a three-way tie with Corey Perry (7 G) and Alex Laferriere (7 G) for sole possession of the third most goals scored by a Kings skater this year, behind only Adrian Kempe (11 G) and Kevin Fiala (12 G). The tally also marks the Pori, Finland, native’s first power play point as a member of the LA Kings.
-Forward Kevin Fiala (1-0=1) broke a tie with Adrian Kempe for sole-possession of the team-lead in goals by netting his 12th of the season. The goal also stands as Fiala’s 64th even-strength goal (EVG) as a member of the Kings, breaking a tie with Jimmy Carson (63 EVG) for sole-possession of 33rd most in franchise history. It also stands as Fiala’s 99th overall goal in an LA uniform, tying Steve Duchesne (99 G) for the 30th most in team history.
-Defenseman Brandt Clarke (0-1=1) recorded his 10th assist of the season on Armia’s game-opening goal. Clarke is the sixth Kings skater to reach double-digits in the assist column this season and currently leads all Kings blueliners with 15 points (5-10=15) through his first 33 games played.
-Forward Alex Laferriere (0-1=1) picked up his eighth helper of the campaign and now has 80 career points (38-42=80) through 191 career games. In doing so, the 23-year-old ties Corey Millen (43-37=80) for the 10th most by a skater drafted in the third round in Kings franchise history.
-Forward Alex Turcotte recorded a single-game career-high six shots on goal (SOG) tonight, surpassing his previous single-game best (5 SOG) set on Jan. 10, 2022 against the New York Rangers.

The Kings will complete their three-game road trip on Thursday night in Tampa Bay against the Lightning at 4:00 p.m. PT.