A rocky sojourn in the Midwest gave way to back-to-back dates in the Sunshine State, as the goal-starved Kings made their way south for clashes with the Florida Panthers on Wednesday and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday.
All five Eastern Conference crowns this decade have stayed in-state, with the Bolts winning the Prince of Wales Trophy from 2020 to 2022 before the Panthers earned it the past two seasons. The Lightning twice captured the Stanley Cup during that period, and the Panthers are the defending champions.
Both teams have already visited Crypto.com Arena this season, with Tampa Bay losing 2-1 in a game where they outplayed the Kings by most measures on Jan. 4, and Florida falling by an identical score on Jan. 22, when the Kings rallied from a second-intermission deficit.
Kings defenseman Joel Edmundson, who won the Stanley Cup in St. Louis and made a Cinderella run to the Final with Montreal alongside Kings center Phillip Danault, said he was anticipating “playoff intensity” Wednesday in Sunrise.
“I expect a 1-0, 2-0 game, like a really close game that has no room,” Edmundson told reporters in Detroit after Monday’s 5-2 loss. “They play well at home, so we’ve got our work cut out for us, but it’s always exciting to play the champs.”
The Kings’ failure in Detroit, which came on the heels of an overtime defeat in Columbus as this five-game road trip commenced, again saw them defy expectation in an ignominious way. It was their most voluminous performance of the season in terms of expected goals, per Natural Stat Trick, but a game in which they surrendered five unanswered scores, six if one were to consider that their second goal was an outright own goal by the Red Wings.
Kings flanker Kevin Fiala pointed to poor puck management, a lack of aggression on the forecheck, a less-than-imposing netfront presence and other details that sabotaged the Kings’ efforts. It was yet another two-goal game, which has literally become par for the course in 2025, when they’ve averaged 2.00 goals per game to rank 31st of 32 teams.
“The hunger, the will to go to the net and just jam it in. The energy felt like it was missing,” Fiala told reporters.
If Fiala was not looking to underlying numbers for encouragement, it was likely because such a disparity between expectation and reality had already been common for the Kings.
Four of their five highest totals in expected goals this season have led to defeat, including three lopsided losses, as have all of their top three expected-goal showings (the Detroit and Columbus games as well as an early-season shelling in Toronto). Last season, that was true of three of their top five expected-goal outputs.
Fiala, who is the Kings’ highest-paid forward this season, has shown signs of tilting his disappointing campaign in the right direction. He notched seven points in his past six games, including the only goal deposited directly by a King on Monday.
“I’m feeling way, way better. I’m just more confident right now. The puck’s going in, so that’s nice, but the most important thing is to try and get wins right now,” Fiala told reporters.
Next up, they’ll face the defending champion Panthers, who’ve split a back-to-back set since last facing the Kings, and then the Lightning, who’ve treaded water this month but remain the NHL’s top-scoring team on a per-game basis. Like the Kings (15-3-1 at home), they’ve excelled on home ice, compiling a 15-6-1 mark at Amalie Arena.
Anton Lundell has recorded a point in each of Florida’s last three games, including a gorgeous assist against the Kings. Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov saw his 11-game heater (19 points) come to a close in a shutout loss to Detroit on Saturday.
Kings at Florida
When: 4 p.m. PT Wednesday
Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise, Fla.
TV: FDSNW
Kings at Tampa Bay
When: 4 p.m. PT Wednesday
Where: Amalie Arena, Tampa, Fla.
TV: FDSNW