LOS ANGELES — Jim Hiller offered up a revelation as the Los Angeles Kings came back to work following a three-day break from their troubles.
“I received a really nice pillow, if you can believe that,” the Kings’ head coach said, answering a light-hearted question about his favorite Christmas gift. “It helped me sleep a little better. A few more goals would probably have done the trick. We had to resort to the pillow.”
A pillow. OK. Truth be told, this doesn’t register on the revelatory scale. But for an increasingly embattled bench boss who’s had more than a few sleepless nights as his underachieving Kings have scuffled offensively all season and failed to generate any lasting momentum, a pillow to use during this short in-season getaway from the rink might have been exactly what he needed.
The real present for the Kings came Saturday in the form of the defenseless Anaheim Ducks. Playing a local rival that’s been mostly getting plaudits for its rise out of the NHL depths should motivate a flagging club. That opponent handing out grade-A scoring chances as if they’re wrapped up with the finest of bows should be exactly what a needy, offensively starved group feasts on.
The Kings did, cashing in four of the multitude of golden looks they had in the opening 20 minutes on the way to a rousing, feel-good, 6-1 drubbing of the Ducks. The NHL’s 26th-ranked offense, limited to two or fewer goals 20 times in 36 pre-break games, erupted, tying a season-high total and giving Hiller his wish. Before Saturday, the Kings had scored two or fewer in seven straight. Not surprisingly, they went 1-4-2.
But it all changed for a night, from the moment the slumping Quinton Byfield fed Drew Doughty for a successful odd-man rush and then Trevor Moore easily gained inside position to redirect a Brian Dumoulin pass toward the net in the four minutes. Alex Laferriere got one when he one-timed a pass from Adrian Kempe, and Byfield, who snapped long goal and point droughts, got a piece of a Brandt Clarke shot on the power play.
DREWWWWW GOT THINGS STARTED pic.twitter.com/DPrpo9wFYt
— LA Kings (@LAKings) December 28, 2025
The Kings needed this after stumbling into the break at a particularly low point, with home losses on back-to-back nights to the Columbus Blue Jackets and Seattle Kraken. To the question of whether they felt joy or relief after the first-period explosion, Kings captain Anže Kopitar took a deep breath and said, “Both, really.”
“I think last game against Seattle, we had some good chances,” Kopitar said. “We just didn’t score. Sometimes you get to — when we were on that extended streak of not being able to put the puck in the net, you get thinking and you get discouraged a little bit. So, to see a few go in early tonight, especially after a break, it’s obviously a good thing and hopefully we can continue building on that.”
Said Laferriere: “It’s kind of a weird spot because there’s so much hockey left against such a good team who can score a ton of goals every single night. Yeah, I mean, for us it’s nice to get those goals, but I think we just got to stay hungry and know that the guys on the other side of the ice are really good players and they can score that many goals in a period as well.
“It’s relieving knowing that we haven’t scored a lot of goals, but we always got to stay hungry.”
The Kings took their foot off the gas in the second but got some key saves from Anton Forsberg and then jumped back on the accelerator in the third. Laferriere, who has been L.A.’s best skater of late, scored both goals to finish off his first NHL hat trick.
ALEX LAFERRIERE’S FIRST CAREER HAT TRICK pic.twitter.com/7Xy63grO0X
— LA Kings (@LAKings) December 28, 2025
Following the trade of center Phillip Danault and amid increasing calls for a greater shakeup, with most of that centered on replacing Hiller, the break from hockey let the Kings clear their minds. If only for a short time.
“It’s nice to be away from the rink a little bit and spending time at home with your family,” Kopitar said. “And obviously Christmas time is very great in my opinion. It was nice. But then again, once you come back to the rink, I mean, you get reminded a lot of what did happen and should happen going forward. We were just able to come out strong and really get it going early.”
As for the Ducks, if a pedestrian 10-11-1 record since their tremendous 11-3-1 start or five losses in seven games heading into the break didn’t serve as a wake-up call, Saturday’s beatdown by their usually punchless SoCal rival had better grab their attention.
What once looked like a season in which they were bound to break their seven-year playoff drought has devolved into one where their current level of play — especially in their own end — isn’t nearly good enough to keep a spot locked up over the long haul, even in the mishmash that is this year’s Pacific Division.
“I think every year, no matter what time of the year it is, you’re going to have stretches where you’re ordinary and we’ve been in that stretch where we’ve been .500 for an extended period of time,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said Saturday. “Which, whether that’s unacceptable or acceptable, it’s not, in our eyes, knowing that you’re not going to be able to make the playoffs being at that level.”
Before that, Quenneville expressed the Ducks’ lack of readiness. “How we prepared over the four days, whatever we did or didn’t do, it was evident that being ready to play is a priority, and it didn’t happen,” he said. “I take full responsibility for that.”
Ducks goaltender Lukáš Dostál had his hands full Saturday night against the Kings. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Imagn Images)
The Ducks’ new run-and-gun nature in Quenneville’s first season was fine and loads of fun in the first handful of weeks and it put an ignored, often forgotten club back on the national radar. But outscoring mistakes isn’t conducive to long-term success, and the Ducks won’t take another step forward unless there is a real, teamwide commitment to defending the slot area in front of goalie Lukáš Dostál.
Dostál can only do so much to stem the tide and the first period to him looked more like the tidal waves he (and John Gibson before him) often had to navigate over his five seasons. Some things have flipped under Quenneville and first-year assistant coach Ryan McGill, such as the shot counter and how they hold the edge while slicing their on-goal average against from a league-worst 32.3 in last season to 28.8 this season.
Some things also haven’t changed. The Ducks remain awful in the numerous quality chances they give up, with only the Detroit Red Wings and New York Islanders allowing more of the high-danger variety, per Natural Stat Trick. Quenneville switched the Ducks to a zone defense after former coach Greg Cronin had them unsuccessfully playing a man-to-man system. There’s been a slight improvement, but Anaheim remains guilty of leaving its zone too often without full puck possession or leaving the opposition open in the slot.
Whether it is players still adjusting to a new system or not consistently committing to the adaptation and the execution, it’s a bad trait. Quenneville had hoped his team would be a lot better at balancing playing defense with creating offensive opportunities.
“I think at this stage of the season, I was hoping for the grasp a little bit more frequent or more predictable,” Quenneville said earlier this week.
What occurred in the first 20 minutes should be of great concern to the Ducks as the Edmonton Oilers awaken from their usual early-season coma and the Vegas Golden Knights navigate past them in the Pacific. Save for one-off division title runs by Calgary and Vancouver, Edmonton and Vegas have been the division’s powers in recent years. Water is finding its level and Anaheim may be settling into its status as a mere playoff hopeful.
As for the Kings, a game at the NHL-best Colorado Avalanche and their 28-2-7 record is up next.
“Well, we go in and play what is the best team in the league, right?” Hiller said. “So, you know, you want to build on something? Go in and beat the best in the league in their building. That’s a big challenge. But I think you get a game like tonight, you feel a little bit better about yourself, you go in there in the right frame of mind and see if you can’t get that done. Then you can start building upon that.
“We haven’t had a chance this year to really string five or six in a row, and I’ve always felt like we could and that we’re going to. Maybe this is the start.”
Devising a plan to stop Nathan MacKinnon and keeping momentum from dissipating in that thin mountainous air. Where is that pillow when you need it?