goal

William Eklund scored 3:08 into overtime, Macklin Celebrini had the tying goal and two assists to extend his point streak to 12 games, and the San Jose Sharks defeated the Kings 4-3 on Wednesday night.

Celebrini evened the score at 3 with 1:07 remaining in regulation. He deked his way past Warren Foegele and sent a wrist shot through traffic that beat goalie Darcy Kuemper through the legs for his 24th goal this season. The 19-year-old center has nine goals and 15 assists during his point streak.

Celebrini is tied for the third-longest point streak by a teenager in NHL history — joining Joe Sakic in 1988-89, Jimmy Carson in 1987-88 and Wayne Gretzky in 1979-80 — and the third-longest point streak in Sharks history.

Tyler Toffoli and Adam Gaudette each had a goal, Yaroslav Askarov made 23 saves and the Sharks won for the fifth time in six games.

Alex Turcotte and Kevin Fiala each had a goal and an assist for the Kings, who still haven’t won three straight games since winning four in a row in mid-November. Alex Laferriere also scored and Kuemper made 24 saves.

Laferriere put the Kings ahead with 2:10 left in the third period, but they couldn’t prevent another sensational play by the electric Celebrini.

The Kings were without four forwards, including stalwart center and team captain Anze Kopitar, who is day-to-day after sustaining a lower-body injury in a win over Minnesota on Monday. Those absences led the Kings to play with 11 forwards and seven defensemen.

Sharks center Ty Dellandrea is week-to-week after sustaining a lower-body injury against Columbus on Tuesday.

Andrei Kuzmenko had a goal and an assist, and the Kings held on to beat the Minnesota Wild 4-2 on Monday night.

Warren Foegele, Kevin Fiala and Adrian Kempe also scored, and Darcy Kuemper stopped 33 shots for the Kings, who beat the Wild for the second time in three nights and got just their fourth win in 12 games (4-6-2).

Jared Spurgeon had a goal and an assist, and Ryan Hartman also scored for Minnesota, which snapped a six-game point streak (3-0-3). and Filip Gustavsson had 29 saves.

The Wild are 3-1-2 on a seven-game road trip that ends Thursday at Seattle. They also lost at Los Angeles 5-4 in a shootout on Saturday night.

Kings center Anze Kopitar left the game after playing 4:54 in the first period. The Kings later ruled him out for the rest of the game because of a lower-body injury.

The Kings had 16-8 advantage on shots on goal in the second period and scored twice to take a 2-0 lead. Minnesota had two power plays in the period, but managed just one shot during the advantages.

Foegele gave the Kings a 1-0 lead with a long shot from just inside the blue line with 4:26 left in the second period.

Fiala doubled the Kings’ lead with 2:08 to go in the middle period. Kuzmenko’s pass deflected off Fiala’s skate on the left doorstep and past Gustavsson for Fiala’s 15th of the season.

Spurgeon got the Wild on the scoreboard at 5:55 of the third period with a shot from the left point through traffic to spoiled Kuemper’s bid for his third shutout of the season.

Kuzmenko restored the Kings’ two-goal lead at 9:20 as he skated with the puck from the left side across the front of the net and put the puck past Gustavsson from the right side.

Hartman pulled the Wild to 3-2 with a power-play goal with 4:39 remaining, but Kempe sealed the Kings’ win with an empty-netter three minutes later..

Up next for the Kings: vs. San Jose on Wednesday night to finish a four-game homestand.

The West Valley League boys’ soccer competition has been dominated by El Camino Real and Birmingham. Both schools usually end up competing for a City title.

Now Cleveland, under second-year coach Julio Chacon, is trying to disrupt the ECR-Birmingham soccer dynasty.

The Cavaliers enter Wednesday’s league opener against El Camino Real with an 11-2 record. Anderson Carranza has 10 goals.

Chacon, a Cleveland graduate, has been trying to get his team to have the confidence to compete against defending City champion El Camino Real and longtime power Birmingham.

“I’m trying to build a new culture,” he said.

This is the first season in years that the City title hunt appears to be wide open. Sylmar owns a win over Birmingham and South East is 14-1-2, including a tie against Birmingham.

El Camino Real is facing a big week, with games against Cleveland, then Birmingham on Friday. On Saturday, ECR passed its first test with a 5-0 win over Sylmar.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Quinton Byfield had a goal and an assist, Samuel Helenius scored his first goal of the season, and the Kings beat the Minnesota Wild 5-4 in a shootout on Saturday night.

Adrian Kempe and Corey Perry also scored, Darcy Kuemper made 24 saves, and the Kings were able to respond after wilting late in similar circumstances in a 5-3 loss to Tampa Bay on Thursday.

Matt Boldy scored late to salvage a point for the Wild. Jake Middleton, Joel Eriksson Ek and Brock Faber each had a goal, and Minnesota is 3-0-3 in its past six games. Jesper Wallstedt made 34 saves.

Kempe and Brandt Clarke scored in the four-round shootout, and Kuemper saved attempts by Kirill Kaprizov and Vladimir Tarasenko.

The Kings took the lead four times, only for the Wild to tie it up each time, with Boldy making it 4-4 with 2:57 remaining by getting to the right post where Faber’s shot went in off his upper body.

The Kings went back in front 3-2 early in the third period when Byfield sent the puck caroming off the boards back into the crease, Wallstedt lost it in his skates off his line, and it was eventually knocked in by an errant Minnesota stick.

Faber tied it 3-3 at 7:33 with an easy tap in from Danila Yurov off the rush.

Helenius scored on a wrist shot from the left circle at 12:09 of the third to put the Kings back up 4-3, with the fourth-line center coming free after entering the zone late off a line chance and putting in Kevin Fiala’s pass.

Up next for the Kings: vs. the Wild again on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.

The Galaxy could be without Riqui Puig for a second straight season, with the team confirming Friday that the midfielder will undergo a second surgery Saturday to repair the torn ACL that caused him to miss all of 2025.

Puig, 26, tore the ligament in his left knee in the 2024 MLS Western Conference final with Seattle. A week later the Galaxy won its sixth league title. But playing without Puig in 2025, the team stumbled through the worst season in franchise history, winning just seven games.

Puig, a product of Barcelona’s famed La Masia youth academy, returned to training with the Galaxy in the fall. But the Galaxy said he had a setback in his recovery after returning to Spain for the holidays. After consulting with the club’s medical staff and outside specialists, the Galaxy and Puig agreed to a second surgery.

The timeline for Puig’s return will not be determined until after the operation, but losing him for any amount of time will be another significant blow for the team since last year’s performance proved Puig is the Galaxy’s most irreplacable player.

Puig had career highs for goals (13) and assists (15) in 2024, when he also led the league in touches and passes, helping the Galaxy set an MLS record with four players scoring 10 or more times. Without him, the team’s possession-based attack suffered, scoring 23 fewer goals and seeing just one player, winger Joseph Paintsil, reach double figures in scoring.

The Galaxy did not place Puig on the season-ending injury list last season, hoping he would return at some point. If doctors determine he is unlikely to play this season, it’s unlikely the team would make the same mistake since shelving Puig would open up a designated-play spot. Puig, who made $5.78 million last season, the eight-largest contract in MLS, is signed through 2027.

Before the Puig news the Galaxy had enjoyed a productive offseason, acquiring Jakob Glesnes, a former MLS defender of the year, in a trade with the Philadelphia Union and signing defender Justin Haak to a free-agent contract.

Gage Goncalves scored the tiebreaking goal with 1:41 to play, and the Tampa Bay Lightning rallied from a late deficit to beat the Kings 5-3 on Thursday night for their sixth consecutive victory.

Anthony Cirelli scored the tying goal with 3:19 left in regulation for the Lightning, who fell behind early in the third period on Kevin Fiala‘s power-play goal.

Cirelli crashed the net and pushed home his 11th goal on a play set up by Brandon Hagel and Nikita Kucherov. Moments later, Cirelli and Goncalves drove the net again, and Goncalves eventually converted a behind-the-net pass from Jake Guentzel for his fourth goal.

Brayden Point had his first two-goal game of the season and Kucherov capped a three-point night by putting his 19th goal into an empty net for the Lightning, who have won back-to-back games to begin their three-game California road trip. Point also scored in Tampa Bay’s 4-3 overtime victory against the Ducks on Wednesday.

Jonas Johansson stopped 17 shots for Tampa Bay (24-13-3), which hasn’t lost since Dec. 18.

Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko each had a goal and an assist on the power play for the Kings (16-14-9), who collapsed late in their eighth loss in 10 games despite scoring multiple man-advantage goals for the first time all season. Los Angeles entered the night with the NHL’s worst power play, scoring on just 14.4% of its chances.

Corey Perry had his first three-assist game since November 2019, setting up both power-play goals and giving him 499 career assists.

Jeff Malott also scored, and Darcy Kuemper returned from injury to make 18 saves in the Canadian Olympic team selection’s first appearance since Dec. 15.

Up next for the Kings: vs. Minnesota at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.

Darren Raddysh scored midway through overtime, and the Tampa Bay Lightning blew three one-goal leads before beating the Ducks 4-3 on Wednesday for their fifth consecutive victory.

Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper celebrated his 1,000th regular-season game in charge with his 595th victory as the longest-tenured bench boss in the NHL. The Lightning’s coach since March 2013 has also led them in 155 playoff games, won two championships and reached four Stanley Cup Finals.

Nikita Kucherov had a goal and an assist as the Lightning skated off with a win in the opener of their three-game California trip when Raddysh converted a pass from Brandon Hagel, who had three assists.

J.J. Moser and Brayden Point also scored for Tampa Bay, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 24 saves.

Mason McTavish tied it on a power play with 6:58 left in regulation for the Ducks, who have lost four straight and eight of 10. Jansen Harkins and Beckett Sennecke also scored, and Lukas Dostal stopped 24 shots as the Ducks earned a point for only the second time in six games.

Moser opened the scoring in the first period with his first goal since agreeing to an eight-year, $54-million contract extension last weekend.

The Ducks scored their first two goals off turnovers, with the 19-year-old Sennecke getting the 12th of his rookie season early in the third period.

Kucherov scored his 18th goal on a cross-ice pass from Hagel during a power play four minutes later, but the Ducks evened it again when Pavel Mintyukov made an exceptional play at the blue line to set up McTavish for his 10th goal.

The Ducks announced during the game that forward Frank Vatrano will be out for about six weeks with a broken shoulder incurred in a loss to the Kings last Saturday.

Up next for the Ducks: vs. Minnesota at Honda Center on Friday.

Macklin Celebrini became the third player with 60 points this season with a goal and two assists in the San José Sharks’ 5-4 victory over the Ducks on Monday night.

Mario Ferraro, Igor Chernyshov, William Eklund and Zach Ostapchuk also scored for the Sharks, who earned their second win since the holiday break despite getting outshot 43-13. Yaroslav Askarov made 38 saves.

Troy Terry scored two goals, Cutter Gauthier got his 19th goal and Pavel Mintyukov also scored for the Ducks, who have lost three straight and seven of nine while falling out of first place in the Pacific Division. Lukas Dostal allowed four goals on nine shots before Petr Mrazek replaced him during the second period.

With his seventh multipoint game of December, Celebrini needed just 39 games to get 60 points — the most scored by a teenager before New Year’s Day in the NHL. He also extended his points streak to eight games.

Celebrini left the ice after getting hit in the face by a deflected puck in the third period, but returned several minutes later.

Alexander Wennberg set up San José’s first two goals with exceptional passes, but Anaheim scored off an atrocious turnover by Askarov. He gave away the puck behind his net to Nikita Nesterenko, who found an uncontested Terry.

Celebrini scored his 21st goal late in the first, and he set up Chernyshov’s second career goal in the second. Eklund chased Dostal with his 10th goal after another clever pass by Celebrini.

Gauthier scored late in the second before setting up Mintyukov early in the third.

San José scored on two of its three shots in the second period, and it didn’t put the puck on Anaheim’s net in the first 11 minutes of the third. Ostapchuk still made it 5-3 on a long tip with 6:13 to play, but Terry scored moments later with Mrazek pulled.

DENVER — Nathan MacKinnon scored the 399th goal of his career, Brock Nelson had a goal and an assist, and the surging Colorado Avalanche won their eighth in a row, 5-2 over the Kings on Monday night.

MacKinnon added an assist to go with his NHL-leading 32nd goal this season. Jack Drury, Cale Makar and Martin Necas also scored for the Avalanche, who have won 14 in a row at home.

Colorado has points in 28 of their last 29 games and are 10-0-1 in their last 11 to continue their historic start to the season. Colorado reached 65 points in 38 games, second all-time to the 1929-30 Boston Bruins.

Corey Perry scored and Joel Armia added a short-handed goal for the Kings, who have lost seven of nine.

Drury opened the scoring midway through the first period and Perry tied it with a power-play goal 5:15 into the second period.

Necas put Colorado back in front later in the second when he tapped in a puck that was sitting on the goal line. Nelson’s snap shot beat Anton Forsberg over his left shoulder with 2:30 left in the second.

Forsberg finished with 21 saves for the Kings.

Avalanche goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 23 shots, including a save on Adrian Kempe’s short-handed breakaway late in the second period.

He couldn’t stop Armia, who skated the length of the ice and scored through the pads during a Colorado power play.

It was the NHL-leading seventh short-handed goal of the season for the Kings.

Forsberg came off for an extra skater with 2:26 remaining and MacKinnon scored an empty-netter with 1:37 remaining. Makar added another goal with 45 seconds to go to seal it.

Up next for the Kings: vs. Tampa Bay at Crypto.com Arena on Thursday.

R.J. Prewitt has been a Ducks fan since the first puck dropped in Anaheim, so he’s known good times and bad.

He was there when the team won the Stanley Cup in 2007, for example, and when it took another final to a seventh game four seasons earlier. But he was also there through each of the last seven seasons, when the Ducks never placed higher than sixth in the Pacific Division and finished a combined 74 games under .500.

“It’s my team,” said Prewitt, wearing a white-and-orange Ducks’ sweater as he waited to enter the Crypto.com Arena for Saturday night’s game with the Kings. “I’m going to have faith no matter what.”

That faith is getting another stern test this month. Because after entering December atop the division standings for the first time in more than a decade, the Ducks have lost six of their last eight, with the most ignominious loss coming Saturday in a 6-1 thrashing by their neighborhood rivals and winger Alex Laferriere, who got his first career hat trick.

Ducks left wing Alex Killorn skates with the puck during a loss to Kings Saturday at Crypto.com Arena.

(Katie Chin / Associated Press)

For the Kings, the season-high six goals comes at the end of a slide that had seen them lose six of their last seven, averaging less than two goals a game over that stretch.

Laferriere scored more than that by himself Saturday.

The Kings’ first two goals, from Drew Doughty and Trevor Moore, came in the first four minutes. Laferriere got his first midway through the first period and when Quinton Byfield scored on a power play just before the intermission, the Kings took a 4-0 lead into the locker room at the break.

For the Ducks, who have been plagued by slow starts — 11 of their 21 wins came in games in which they trailed; only the Philadelphia Flyers have more — that deficit was too much to overcome.

“That’s unacceptable,” coach Joel Quenneville said. “You’re not going to make the playoffs being at that level. So we’ve got to make sure that we recapture that feeling of what it takes to be consistent.”

Ducks coach Joel Quenneville yells instructions to his players during a game against the Chicago Blackhawks on Oct. 19.

(Paul Beaty / Associated Press)

Yet despite Saturday’s loss, the Ducks and their fans still have a lot of positives to celebrate — especially given the team’s recent history.

The Ducks’ 21 wins are still most in the division; they didn’t get their 21st win until Jan. 28th last season. And their 130 goals through 38 games — an average of nearly 3 ½ a night — rank fourth in the NHL. They were in the bottom three in scoring in each of the last three seasons.

But what had been the most remarkable turnaround in the league through the first three months has suddenly hit a rough patch, challenging the narrative that new coach Quenneville had finally taken the team from pretenders to contenders.

“Well, we’ve got to prove it,” Quenneville said after Saturday’s humiliation, the Ducks’ most lopsided loss of the season. “We can talk about [how] we want to be a harder-working team this season. But the game tonight didn’t indicate that at all.

“The tenaciousness and the relentless has to go be part of our identity. But we can’t talk about it. We’ve got to prove that.”

Quenneville has been here before. In 2008, he took over a young Chicago Blackhawks team that hadn’t been to the playoffs in five seasons and guided it to the conference finals. A year later, it won the Stanley Cup.

Then in 2019, he took over a young Florida Panthers’ team and led it to the franchise’s first playoff appearance in three seasons.

Both teams had to learn to win, had to believe they could win, before they actually did so. Now Quenneville’s young Ducklings are having their beliefs tested by their worst eight-game stretch of the season.

“I’ve never been on a winning-record team in the NHL. And I’m not the only guy,” said 22-year-old center Mason McTavish, one of six Ducks younger than 23. “It’s a learning curve for sure.

“But at the same time we know how good we are. And this last six, eight games, it’s not been up to our standard. We’ve taken a huge step this year. But that’s not our end goal. We want to make the playoffs. We want to win the Stanley Cup.”

The Ducks will have to become a lot more consistent to have a chance to make that happen. Because while they’re one of the league’s top scoring teams, only the St. Louis Blues have allowed more goals than the Ducks, who have a minus-2 goal differential. And they’ve been outscored 34-19 in their last eight games.

The slump, then, is looming as a test of character and resolve. At a similar point in Quenneville’s first season in Chicago, the Blackhawks lost five times in an eight-game stretch. But they rebounded by winning nine of their next 12 and never looked back.

McTavish, who had his team’s only goal Saturday, said the Ducks have to do the same thing if they hope to show the playoffs are now a realistic goal for a franchise that hasn’t had a winning record in seven seasons.

Ducks goaltender Lukas Dostal is congratulated by Nikita Nesterenko and Mason McTavish after blocking a shot by Panthers center Evan Rodrigues to win during a shootout on Oct. 28 in Sunrise, Fla.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

“We have to come out the next game and really prove to ourselves that we can play with the top teams in the league,” he said. “And beat them.”

The Ducks long-suffering supporters are also ready for the pain of the last seven seasons to ease.

“Yes, yes, yes. I believe,” said Daniel Núñez of Bakersfield who, like Prewitt, has been a fan from the first season. “We have a good shot, I think, to win the Pacific Division. We have a really good team.”

“Whatever they’re doing,” Prewitt agreed “I’m there with them.”

The Kings and Ducks backed into Saturday’s rivalry game at Crypto.com Arena.

The Kings came out of the NHL’s three-day holiday break having lost six of their last seven, scoring just 11 goals over that span. Only two teams in the Western Conference have been worst in December.

The Ducks hadn’t been much better, though, having won just two of their last seven to give up their lead in the Pacific Division. But the league rules said somebody had to win Saturday and that proved to be the Kings, who rode a four-goal first period and Alex Laferriere’s first career hat trick to a dominant 6-1 victory that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated.

Drew Doughty put the Kings in front to stay just three minutes after the opening faceoff, finding open ice on the edge of the crease, where he took a pass from Quinton Byfield and deflected it past Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal. The second assist on the goal went to former Duck Corey Perry.

Trevor Moore doubled the lead less than a minute later, redirecting in a feed from Brian Dumoulin in the left circle. Ducks coach Joel Quenneville responded by calling a 30-second timeout in an effort to settle his team.

That didn’t work, with Laferriere blasting a one-timer by Dostal from just outside the crease to make it 3-0 with 9:39 left in the first period. When Byfield scored on a power play in the final minute, the Kings had their first four-goal period of the season and their first four-goal game in nearly three weeks.

After being booed off the ice at the end of their last game, a 3-2 loss to Seattle on Wednesday, the Kings left to cheers for the first intermission.

The Ducks finally got on the board when Mason McTavish scored on the power play midway through the second period. They worked hard for that goal, outshooting the Kings 12-1 in the period, yet coming away with just the one score.

Laferriere wound up matching that less than five minutes into the third period, scoring on a breakaway to give him the third multi-goal game of his career and his first this season. Dumoulin and Anze Kopitar both got their second assists on the goal.

And Laferriere wasn’t done, scoring his 10th goal on a one-timer from the high slot at 13:15 of the final period. The six goals for the Kings matched their season high and was one short of what they had scored in their last four games combined.

Untold riches awaited Adrian Kempe as one of the NHL’s top unrestricted free agents next summer.

Mitch Marner, among last summer’s top targets, got $12 million a season from Vegas in a sign-and-trade deal with Toronto hours before he would have hit the open market. With more goals than Marner over the last four full seasons, how much could Kempe — in his prime at 29 — have demanded?

We’ll never know. Because whatever amount it might have been, Kempe decided it wasn’t worth more than his happiness. So last month he signed an eight-year contract extension worth a reported $85 million with the Kings that figures to keep him with the only organization he’s ever known for the rest of his career.

“There’s probably some teams that would have given me offers. But I never really got to the part where that was something that I wanted,” he said. “I’m really happy here. Always have been. Family-wise, the same.

“So there was never anything else in my mind.”

That’s a mind that is apparently at ease now that Kempe’s hockey future has been determined. With 13 goals and a team-high 17 assists, he leads the offensively challenged Kings with 30 points and seven of those goals have come in the 17 games since he signed his extension.

But that’s done little to lift the team, which has lost six of their last seven heading into Saturday’s game with the Ducks. The last time the Kings had a seven-game stretch this bad it cost coach Todd McLellan his job.

“I’m not happy, but I really believe in this group,” said winger Kevin Fiala, who shares the team goal-scoring lead with Kempe. “I really believe this is a great team, great players. We just have to kind of find the game. And not just for some minutes, not even for one game, 60 minutes.

“We have to go for a stretch here, get some wins in a row. Start feeling good, start playing good.”

That might be tough given how the Kings will finish 2025. After Saturday’s home game with the resurgent Ducks, the team travels to Colorado to face the Avalanche, who lead the NHL in points.

If the Kings are to turn things around, they will have to jump start an offense which is second-to-last in the NHL, averaging 2.52 goals a game, and a power play that has converted on less than 14% of its chances, also 31st in the 32-team league. And the responsibility for making that happen probably will fall to Kempe, who has scored as many goals over the past four full seasons as Sidney Crosby and has just six fewer assists than Alex Ovechkin, keeping the Swedish Olympian in heady company.

Kings forward Adrian Kempe shoots during a win over the Winnipeg Jets on Nov. 4.

(Harry How / Getty Images)

“Adrian is a bit of a streaky scorer,” coach Jim Hiller said. “A lot of his recent goals are goals that we’ve seen him score before, where he’s either beating someone with speed, a nice deke.

“So to me it’s the type of goals he’s scoring right now that’s got me encouraged.”

That’s not all that’s encouraging. Kempe, a quick and physical two-way forward, is averaging a career-high 19:18 of ice time per game and is on pace to score 30 goals and top 68 points for a second straight season.

With captain Anze Kopitar retiring at the end of the season and defenseman Drew Doughty in the penultimate year of his contract, re-signing Kempe, the team’s future leader on and off the ice, was at the top of Ken Holland’s to-do list when he took over as general manager last spring. And while the length of the contract he offered Kempe never wavered, the price did.

In the end, media reports said Kempe blinked first, telling agent J.P. Berry to lower his salary demands to get a deal done, eventually accepting an average annual value of $10.625 million beginning next season. That nearly doubles the $5.5 million he’ll earn this season and makes him the fifth-best-paid Swede in the NHL, according to the Sweden Herald. But it’s less than he would have gotten on the open market.

“I think it says two things,” Hiller said of the deal. “What it says about the franchise is that the player was known, was drafted here, was developed here.”

What it says about Kempe, he continued, is that he values that loyalty more than money.

Kings forward Adrian Kempe against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 18.

(Chris O’Meara / Associated Press)

“I think he probably appreciates the time and energy spent on his career, getting him to where he was,” Hiller said. “Now it’s his choice and he says, ‘You know what? I want to stay in place.’”

He’s not alone. A number of the Kings’ recent cornerstone players — among them Dustin Brown, Kopitar and Doughty — spent their entire NHL careers with the team. If he avoids serious injury and a major dropoff in play, Kempe will almost certainly rank among the top five in franchise history in games, goals and points when his contract runs out.

That’s the long-term return on investment Holland and the Kings are hoping for. For the time being, however, they’re counting on Kempe to save a season that seems in danger of spiraling.

Like Fiala, Kempe believes in the Kings.

“If I weren’t happy here, obviously I would consider not playing here,” Kempe said. “We have a good core. We have a good group of younger guys coming up. I think we’re in a good spot.

“Obviously you have to take that in consideration, too, when you sign a new deal. You want to play on a good team, you want to win cups.”

And it’s hard to put a price tag on that.

January has traditionally been the harshest time of the year for the Kings, who haven’t had a winning record in that month the last three seasons. But winter grew dark and gloomy a little earlier than usual because December has hardly been a walk in the park.

With Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken, the Kings head into the NHL’s three-day Christmas break having lost six of their last seven. And things aren’t getting easier any time soon: when the team returns to the ice Saturday, it will play host to the Ducks, who lead the Pacific Division in wins, before closing out 2025 Monday on the road against the Colorado Avalanche, who lead the NHL in wins.

“It’s not going the way we all want to,” forward Kevin Fiala said. “But you know, that’s going to happen for everybody. So it’s us who have to do something about it. Who can pull us out of it? Nobody else.

“I’m not worried. Like, I’m sure we’re gonna get out of this. But it’s not acceptable right now.”

And if it doesn’t change right now, the rest of the season will be as cold as a winter frost for the Kings.

It’s not just that the team is losing, but how it’s losing that is most concerning. The Kings (15-12-9) are 31st in the 32-team NHL in scoring, 31st on the power play and have scored more than two goals just twice in 11 games this month. That’s negated a defense that is second in the league in goals allowed.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to make sense of things,” coach Jim Hiller said when asked to explain a slide that has dropped the Kings into the middle of the division standings. “We just feel like we haven’t had a good run of games where we felt like, win or lose, we really like how we’re playing.

“That’s something that we’ll keep driving towards. We just haven’t had it yet.”

Last season, Hiller’s Kings tied franchise records for wins and points in the regular season and had the best home mark in team history. This season, they’re 4-8-4 at Crypto.com Arena, the second-worst home record in the Western Conference. And that has general manager Ken Holland answering questions about Hiller’s future behind the bench.

“I expect him to be here the rest of the season,” said Holland last week, not exactly a full-throated vote of confidence.

Yet for all their struggles, December has just been a continuation of the things that have plagued the Kings all season.

“We all have high expectations for ourselves,” Hiller said. “We just haven’t hit our stride yet. That’s the part that we’re chasing. That’s what we have to focus on. We have to hit that stride.

“It’s a difficult time right now, for sure.”

On Tuesday, Hiller tried to shake things up by mixing up his lines, most significantly pairing Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko with center Alex Turcotte. And while Fiala and Kuzmenko responded with goals, they didn’t come until the Kraken had taken a 3-0 lead.

The first goal came from Jordan Eberle, who was left alone in front of the Kings’ net, giving him plenty of space to settle a pass from Matty Beniers before lifting the puck around goaltender Pheonix Copley and under the crossbar for his 13th goal of the season. It was the fourth power-play goal the Kings had given up in the last two nights and the sixth in four games.

The Kraken doubled their lead on a quirky goal less than eight minutes later, with Copley misjudging a deflected shot from Seattle’s Frederick Gaudreau, allowing the puck to knuckle off his glove then trickle through his legs for the goal.

Ben Meyers extended Seattle’s lead to 3-0 with less than four minutes left in the second before the Kings finally got on the board with an unassisted goal from Fiala, his 13th of the season, 11 seconds later.

Kings coach Jim Hiller watches from the bench during the second period of a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

Now the Kings will have three days to think about that, although Fiala said he’d gotten over the game by the time he finished showering.

“If you win five in a row or lose five in a row or whatever, it’s forgotten. It’s in the past,” he said. “I think we take the good things with us and the bad things we hopefully analyze and get better at.”

For Hiller, the break couldn’t come at a better time. Or a worse time since the team’s current seven-game slump is its deepest since the winter of 2023-24. That one cost coach Todd McLellan his job.

“I hope the players are able to relax and refresh themselves,” Hiller said. “It’s been from September till now, with the schedule and how busy it is. And 85% of our games, we’ve been playing within one goal.

“It’s taxing physically and mentally. So I’m sure those guys need a break.”

A lone goal by the Manchester United forward is enough for Ivory Coast to successfully begin their AFCON title defence.

Holders Ivory Coast squandered a number of chances, but Amad Diallo’s goal early in the second half was enough to beat Mozambique 1-0 and give them a winning ⁠start to their Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) title defence.

In the opening Group F ​game on Wednesday in Morocco, the Ivorians battled to break down their ‍opponents in a competitive first half but took firm control after the break without converting the many chances they created.

Diallo side-footed the ball into the net in the ‍49th minute ⁠to ensure the three-point haul in rainy conditions, but the scoreline would have been a lot more emphatic had the Ivorians been sharper in front of goal.

Wilfried Zaha, playing his first international in more than two years after his surprise recall for the Cup of Nations finals, wasted several chances, and Franck Kessie had two point-blank ​efforts saved by Mozambique goalkeeper Ernan.

Ivorian substitute Vakoun Bayo ‌also had an opportunity with an easy header in front of goal but somehow put it wide, and in the 89th minute, Bayo had an effort cleared off the line ‌with Ernan caught well out of his goal.

Mozambique brought on winger Dominguez as a second-half substitute ‌at the age of 42 years, one month ⁠and six days, making him the oldest outfield player in tournament history behind only former Egypt goalkeeper Essam El Hadary, who was 44 when he played in the 2017 final.

Mozambique are ‌still to win a match at the finals, stretching back to their tournament debut in 1986. This is their sixth appearance with a record of ‍four draws and 12 losses.

Mason Marchment scored two power-play goals, Kirill Marchenko had one, and the Columbus Blue Jackets beat the Kings 3-1 on Monday night.

Jet Greaves made 23 saves and Damon Severson had two assists as Columbus snapped a four-game road losing streak.

Andrei Kuzmenko scored and Anton Forsberg made 27 saves as the Kings were held to fewer than three goals for the sixth straight game.

Columbus was without defenseman Zach Werenski, who is day to day with a lower body injury sustained blocking a shot against the Ducks on Saturday. Werenski leads the Blue Jackets in goals, assists and points, and his 14 goals are tied with Washington’s Jakob Chychrun for most in the NHL by a defenseman.

However, newcomer Marchment made up for it, scoring twice in the first period, giving him three goals in two games since being acquired from Seattle on Friday. He opened the scoring 4:07 into the game with a wrist shot off Forsberg’s blocker, before making it 2-0 with 23.5 seconds remaining in the first period when Boone Jenner’s shot took a double deflection and went in off Marchment’s shoulder.

Kuzmenko got the Kings on the scoreboard with 1:19 remaining in the second, but Marchenko added a third power-play tally for the Blue Jackets with 5:46 remaining in the third. The three goals with the man-advantage were a season high, and it was the third time the Blue Jackets had multiple power-play goals.

The Kings were playing for the first time since trading third-line center Phillip Danault to Montreal on Friday, but newly promoted bottom six centers Alex Turcotte and Samuel Helenius struggled to make a consistent impact with frequent penalties creating a choppy game flow.

Up next for the Kings: vs. Seattle at Crypto.com Arena on Tuesday.

Mohamed Salah puts Liverpool controversy ‌behind him with dramatic winner against Zimbabwe in their AFCON opener.

Mohamed Salah snatched a dramatic stoppage-time winner as Egypt came from behind to beat Zimbabwe 2-1 in their first fixture at the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals in Morocco on Monday.

Egypt’s captain, starting his first game after four successive matches ⁠on the bench at Liverpool, fired home a left-footed effort in the 91st minute to earn the seven-time champions a ​late victory after Zimbabwe had stunned them by going ahead in the first half.

Egypt laid an early ‍siege to Zimbabwe’s goal, but it was the underdogs who netted first through Prince Dube in the 20th minute.

It was left to Egypt’s Premier League contingent of Omar Marmoush, who equalised in the 64th minute, and talisman Salah to see them to a last-gasp victory.

Salah ‍had come into the ⁠tournament in Morocco under the spotlight following a fiery outburst after being dropped by the Premier League champions, and struggled to find his rhythm for most of the match at the Grande Stade d’Agadir. When it counted, however, he swept home the winner to see Egypt join South Africa, who beat Angola 2-1 earlier in Marrakesh, at the top of Group B.

It was as much as Egypt deserved, breaking a run of six successive draws over the last two editions of the Cup of Nations.

They had four good chances in the ​opening 10 minutes as they put Zimbabwe under intense pressure but fell behind when Emmanuel ‌Jalai fed the ball inside for Dube, who turned in possession and placed his effort into the bottom left corner.

It could have been 2-0 as Daniel Msendami’s pace set up a scrambled chance for Washington Navaya that Egypt goalkeeper Mohamed El Shenawy managed to gather before it could ‌be bundled over the line.

Marmoush sole effect

Marmoush equalised in the 64th minute, picking up a long pass on the left wing before cutting inside and firing home with his right ‌foot from an acute angle for a superb solo goal.

“We created many ⁠chances without being able to score early, but in the end everything went well,” Marmoush said.

“We kept a good mindset and finished the match strongly. We will learn from everything that happened in tonight’s game.”

Substitute Ahmed Zizo should have headed home at the back post from Mohamed Hamdy’s inviting cross ‌but put his effort wide, and missed again four minutes from the end when Salah teed him up with a good chance.

It was left to Salah to secure the three points, holding off his marker to bring the ball under control ‍before steering it home for his first goal since early last month.

In the next set of Group B fixtures, Egypt meet South Africa in Agadir on Boxing Day while Zimbabwe and Angola clash on Friday in Marrakesh.

Jordan Eberle scored the tiebreaking goal midway through the third period and added an empty-netter in the final minute, and the Seattle Kraken beat the Ducks 3-1 on Monday night.

Frederick Gaudreau also scored and Kaapo Kakko had two assists for the Kraken. Philipp Grubauer stopped 39 shots.

Mikael Granlund scored for the Pacific Division-leading Ducks and Lukas Dostal had 18 saves.

Matty Beniers set up the go-ahead goal when he slid the puck past defender Radko Gudas and onto the stick of a wide-open Eberle, who snapped a shot from the left circle into the upper-right corner of the net for a 2-1 Kraken lead with 9:56 left.

Eberle then sealed the win with an empty-netter with 36 seconds remaining.

Grubauer had 16 saves in the second period and 15 in the third.

Seattle took a 1-0 lead 4:49 into the second when Gaudreau gathered the rebound of Shane Wright’s shot and flipped the puck into a near-open net for a power-play goal.

The Ducks tied it with 4:20 left in the second when Granlund battled Vince Dunn for position in the slot and redirected Jacob Trouba’s shot from above the right circle past Grubauer for his fourth goal in four games.

Granlund, who has missed 18 games because of injuries, has seven goals and four assists in his last 13 games.

The Ducks played without leading scorer Leo Carlsson, who missed his first game of the season because of a lower-body injury. Seattle played without top defenseman Brandon Montour, who underwent hand surgery Monday and will be out for four weeks. Montour was injured in last week’s fight against Colorado.

Linesman Ryan Gibbons departed with 53 seconds left in the first after tripping in front of the Seattle bench and hitting the back of his head on the ice. He did not return.

Up next for the Ducks: vs. Kings at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.

Lyle Foster’s match-winning 79th-minute strike allowed South Africa to win first opening match at AFCON since 2004.

Lyle Foster scored a superb winner from outside the box as South Africa defeated Angola 2-1 in Africa Cup of Nations Group B in Marrakesh on Monday, the first time they have won their opening match ⁠at the continental finals in 21 years.

South Africa also had a goal disallowed and struck the crossbar, ​just about deserving the nervy victory. Angola also had chances and will ‍be disappointed not to have gotten something from the game.

South Africa took the lead on 21 minutes when Oswin Appollis showed neat footwork in the box to work a shooting chance and put the ball in the bottom ‍corner. But Angola ⁠equalised before the break as Show got a touch to Fredy’s free kick to steer the ball into the net.

The winning moment came after 79 minutes, when Foster was teed up 20 yards out and curled his shot into the top corner to give the bronze medallists from two years ago a positive start to their campaign.

It was a workmanlike performance from South Africa, who do not have the plethora of players in top ​European leagues that their tournament rivals enjoy, with Foster their only one ‌at Premier League Burnley.

But they are a well-oiled machine under Belgian coach Hugo Broos and did enough for a victory that set them well on course for the knockout rounds. Egypt and Zimbabwe will meet later on Monday in ‌the same pool.

Even first half

South Africa took the lead after a period of sustained possession that led to Khuliso Mudau’s cross, which was ‌touched by both Sipho Mbule and Foster before Appollis beat two ⁠defenders and side-footed into the bottom corner of the net.

Angola equalised on 35 minutes when Fredy’s low free kick was touched into the bottom corner by Show, his second goal in his 50th cap for his country, to make it ‌1-1 at the break.

South Africa thought they had retaken the lead when halftime substitute Tshepang Moremi turned his defender and fired low into the bottom corner of the net, but a VAR review showed ‍that Foster was offside in the buildup.

South Africa’s Mbekezeli Mbokazi crashed the ball against the crossbar with a rasping shot from 35 yards, before Foster’s clinical strike secured all three points.

Zambia rally to draw with Mali

In an earlier Group A match on Monday, Zambia’s Patson Daka scored with a spectacular diving header in stoppage time to see his ‍side come from behind ‍and force a 1-1 draw with Mali in Casablanca.

Mali looked in control for most of the encounter, but paid the price for sitting back in the closing stages as Zambia staged a ⁠late recovery, with Daka leaping through the air to force home Mathews Banda’s curling cross two minutes into ​stoppage time at the end of the game.

Lassine Sinayoko had ‌taken advantage of sloppy defending to give ‌Mali a 62nd-minute lead ⁠after his strike partner, El Bilal Toure, had a first-half penalty saved.

Pavel Mintyukov slid a shot from the slot past Elvis Merzlikins with 3:29 left and the Ducks beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-3 on Saturday night.

Mikael Granlund threaded a pass from the right circle to set up Mintyukov, and also scored. Jacob Trouba and Mason McTavish added goals to help the Ducks move back into first place in the Pacific Division.

Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal made 23 saves. He was pulled Friday night in an 8-3 loss to Dallas after he gave up four goals on seven shots in the first 14½ minutes.

Dmitri Voronkov, Mason Marchment and Zach Werenski scored for Columbus. Merzlikins made 24 saves.

Werenski tied it 3-3 with 7:16 left, taking a pass from Denton Mateychuk and snapping a shot from the left circle over Dostal’s right blocker. He has five goals in three games and 14 overall.

Werenski was injured when he blocked a shot with 2:11 left and struggled to get to the bench, the Blue Jackets taking a penalty for too many men on the ice that stifled any comeback hopes.

Columbus tied it 2-2 when Marchment, acquired from the Seattle Kraken on Friday, redirected a waist-high, blue-line shot from Damon Severson past Dostal 3:39 into the second.

The Ducks took a 3-2 lead when fourth-line winger Ross Johnston slipped a pass from behind the Columbus net to McTavish, who snapped a shot from the slot over Merzlikins’ right shoulder with 6:24 left in the second.

Up next for the Ducks: vs. Seattle at Honda Center on Monday night.

Jason Robertson had two goals and an assist and the Dallas Stars beat the Ducks 8-3 on Friday night for their third straight win.

Roope Hintz and Thomas Harley each had a goal and an assist, and Oskar Bäck, Sam Steel, Ilya Lybushkin and Adam Erne also scored for the Stars. who are an NHL-best 13-2-4 on the road. Mikko Rantanen and Miro Heiskanen each had two assists, and Casey DeSmith had 23 saves.

Ryan Poehling, Beckett Sennecke and Mikael Granlund scored for the Ducks, who have lost four of five. Lukas Dostal gave up four goals on seven shots before he was pulled with 5:41 left in the first period. Petr Mrazek came on and stopped 14 of the 18 shots he faced the rest of the way.

The Stars’ eight-goal output tied a season high, matching their 8-3 win at Edmonton on Nov. 25, and was the most the Ducks have given up this season.

Bäck gave the Stars a 1-0 lead with a shorthanded goal 2:37 into the game after the Ducks turned the puck over behind their net.

Poehling tied it 55 seconds later, scoring in close on the rebound of a point shot by Radko Gudas.

Hintz put Dallas back ahead at 4:42, getting a pass from Robertson in the slot, sliding backward and firing a shot past Dostal for his 11th.

Steel pushed the Stars’ lead to 3-1 with 7:19 left in the first, scoring past Dostal while crashing into the net and dislodging it. The goal was confirmed after a review.

Harley made it a three-goal lead 1:38 later as he got a pass from Rantanen and scored from the right circle.

Robertson scored in front on a power play with 8:50 remaining in the second, and then put a backhander past Mrazek from the right circle four minutes later to make it 6-1. It gave Robertson a team-leading 22 goals.

Erne made it a six-goal lead with 1:30 left in the middle period.

After Sennecke pulled the Ducks back within five 1:01 into the third, Lybushkin got his first of the season 41 seconds later to extend the Stars’ lead to 8-2. Granlund capped the scoring with 5:38 remaining.