Jan. 14 (UPI) — Vice President JD Vance was needed Wednesday to vote in the Senate for the Republicans to quash a Democratic effort to rein in President Donald Trump‘s ability to launch military action against Venezuela.
Vance cast the deciding vote to break the 50-50 tie in a point of order to bar Senate Joint Resolution 98 from advancing to final consideration. The resolution appeared to have bipartisan promise, with five Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues in supporting the measure last week, but Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Todd Young, R-Ind., changed their positions in the decisive motion following a pressure campaign from President Donald Trump.
“Senate Republicans continually fall in line behind Donald Trump, no matter how reckless, no matter how unconstitutional, no matter the potential cost of American lives,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a press conference following the vote.
“What has happened tonight is a road map to another endless war because this Senate under Republican leadership failed to assert its legitimate and needed authority.”
The bill was introduced in early December by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., amid a U.S. military buildup near Venezuela and as the Trump administration was attacking alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, a move that heightened concerns about the president’s ability to attack the South American country without congressional approval.
As the bill was pending, Trump ordered a clandestine military operation earlier this month that resulted in the seizure of Venezuela’s authoritarian leader, Nicolas Maduro.
Despite Maduro’s ouster, concerns over further U.S. military action in Venezuela remain, along with uncertainty over the Trump administration’s plans for the country.
“The White House put a full-court press on unlike any I’ve sen in 13 years here to stop a public debate about war,” Kaine said. “If they were that righteous about the justness of this cause or the validity of their legal rationale, they wouldn’t be afraid of public debate.”
Following the initial vote, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to call for the senators’ ouster.
“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America,” Trump said.
Trump said they “should never be elected to office again.”
“This Vote greatly hampers American Self-Defense and National Security, impeding the President’s Authority as Commander in Chief,” he added.
Young, in a statement Wednesday, said his change in position followed conversations with senior national security officials who assured him there are no troops on the ground in Venezuela and with Trump, who said if U.S. forces were needed in military operations in the South American nation the administration would ask Congress for authorization.
“I strongly believe any commitment of U.S. forces in Venezuela must be subject to debate and authorization in Congress,” he said.
Kaine, who has already filed several war powers resolutions, said the Democrats are going “to be filing a whole lot more.”
United States Vice President JD Vance has cast the tie-breaking vote to defeat a war powers resolution that would have forced President Donald Trump to seek Congress’s approval before taking any further military action in Venezuela.
The Senate’s session on Wednesday evening came to a nail-biting conclusion, as the fate of the resolution ended up resting on the shoulders of two Republican politicians.
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Senators Todd Young of Indiana and Josh Hawley of Missouri had voted last week, as part of a group of five breakaway Republicans, to put the resolution to a full Senate vote. With unanimous support from Democrats, the measure advanced with 52 votes in favour, 47 against.
But supporters of the resolution could only afford to lose one vote in order to secure the bill’s passage. By Wednesday, it had lost two: both Young and Hawley.
The final vote was evenly split, 50 to 50, allowing Vance to act as tie-breaker and defeat the resolution.
Hawley signalled early in the day that he had decided to withdraw his support. But Young was a wild card until shortly before the final vote took place
“After numerous conversations with senior national security officials, I have received assurances that there are no American troops in Venezuela,” Young wrote on social media.
“I’ve also received a commitment that if President Trump were to determine American forces are needed in major military operations in Venezuela, the Administration will come to Congress in advance to ask for an authorization of force.”
Young also shared a letter, dated Wednesday, from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, offering lukewarm assurances that Congress would be notified ahead of any future military action in Venezuela.
“Should the President determine that he needs to introduce US Armed Forces into hostilities in major military operation in Venezuela, he would seek congressional authorizations in advance (circumstances permitting),” Rubio wrote.
Josh Hawley signalled early on Wednesday that he would not vote to pass the war powers resolution in the Senate [File: J Scott Applewhite/AP Photo]
Legal questions about the Venezuela attack
The latest war powers resolution arrived in response to a surprise announcement on January 3 that Trump had launched a military action to topple Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Explosions were reported in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas and nearby military bases, and Trump appeared in a broadcast hours later to announce that the US had abducted Maduro and transported him to the US to face criminal trial.
Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores was also captured as part of the operation.
Two US service members were injured in the attack, and as many as 80 people in Venezuela were killed, including Cuban security personnel involved in guarding Maduro.
“We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” Trump said in his speech announcing the attack.
He and Rubio then fielded questions about whether Congress had been notified about the operation. They acknowledged they did not notify lawmakers in advance.
“This was not the kind of mission that you can do congressional notification on,” Rubio said. “It was a trigger-based mission.”
Trump, meanwhile, argued that congressional notification had been a liability to the mission’s security. “Congress will leak, and we don’t want leakers,” he said.
Normally, the US Constitution divides up military authority between the legislative and executive branches. While the president is considered the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, only Congress has the power to declare war and authorise military action.
But that division of power has become gradually eroded, as the executive branch has exercised greater authority over the military.
In recent decades, presidents have often justified unilateral military action by referring to authorisations of military force (AUMFs) approved by Congress in the wake of the attacks on September 11, 2001.
But military action in Venezuela falls outside of the purview of those authorisations, raising questions about the legal justification for the January attack.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice published a 22-page memo it originally wrote in December to justify the forthcoming attack. That memo argued that, since Maduro’s abduction was an act of “law enforcement”, it fell short of the legal threshold that would have required congressional approval.
In addition, the document asserted that, since the planned military operation was not expected to trigger a war, it also landed outside of Congress’s powers.
“The law does not permit the President to order troops into Venezuela without congressional authorization if he knows it will result in a war,” the memo explained. “As of December 22, 2025, we have not received facts indicating it will.”
Senator Todd Young said he had received assurances from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that the executive branch would communicate to Congress about further military actions[File: Ben Curtis/AP Photo]
A Republican breakaway
But not every Republican agreed with that explanation, and several sought to claw back Congress’s power to oversee US military action.
They included senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Susan Collins of Maine, all seen as pivotal swing votes in Congress’s upper chamber.
Young and Hawley joined the three rogue Republicans for an initial vote to advance the war powers resolution on January 8. But afterwards, all five came under acute pressure to switch sides and rejoin the Republican caucus for the final vote.
President Trump, in particular, denounced the five Republicans on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Republicans should be ashamed of the Senators that just voted with Democrats in attempting to take away our Powers to fight and defend the United States of America,” he wrote in a post.
“This Vote greatly hampers American Self Defense and National Security, impeding the President’s Authority as Commander in Chief.”
Reports emerged that Trump even called some of the senators in advance of Wednesday’s vote, in an effort to gain their support. But the publication The Hill indicated that Trump’s conversation with Collins devolved into a “profanity-laced rant”.
Paul, another Republican who has also courted Trump’s ire, was among the senators to speak before Wednesday’s final vote.
He defended his decision to back the war powers resolution, calling his vote a necessary act to uphold the Constitution’s separation of powers.
“This isn’t really and shouldn’t be Republican versus Democrat. This should be legislative prerogative versus presidential prerogative, and it should be about the Constitution,” Paul said.
“The Constitution — specifically, thoughtfully — vested the power of initiating war and declaring war to Congress,” he added.
“The spectrum of our founding fathers concluded they didn’t want the president to have this power.”
Risking Trump’s ire comes at a higher cost for some Republicans than others. Of the three Republicans who joined Democrats on Wednesday to vote for the war powers resolution, only one is up for re-election this year in the US midterm races: Collins.
WASHINGTON — The Senate is headed toward a vote Wednesday on a war powers resolution that would put a check on President Trump’s ability to carry out further military attacks on Venezuela, but the president was putting intense pressure on his fellow Republicans to vote down the measure.
Trump has lashed out at five GOP senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week, raising doubts that the measure will ultimately pass. Yet even the possibility that the Republican-controlled Senate would defy Trump on such a high-profile vote revealed the growing alarm on Capitol Hill about the president’s expanding foreign policy ambitions.
Democrats are forcing the vote after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month.
“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.”
Trump’s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president’s fury underscored how the war powers vote has taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.
The legislation, even if passed by the Senate, has virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad.
At least one Republican reconsiders
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, has indicated he may change his position.
Hawley said that Trump’s message during a phone call last week was that the legislation “really ties my hands.” The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio that was “really positive.”
Hawley said that Rubio told him Monday “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.” The senator said he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.
Hawley’s position left the vote margin for the resolution, which advanced 52-47 last week, razor thin.
However, Collins told reporters Wednesday she will still support the resolution. Murkowski and Paul have also indicated they won’t switch.
That left Sen. Todd Young, an Indiana Republican, with the crucial vote. He declined repeatedly to discuss his position but said he was “giving it some thought.”
Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, said he wasn’t surprised at Trump’s reaction to senators asserting their ability to put a check on the president.
“They’re furious at the notion that Congress wants to be Congress,” he said. “But I think people who ran for the Senate, they want to be U.S. senators and they don’t want to just vote their own irrelevance.”
What is the war powers resolution?
Under the Constitution, Congress alone has the ability to declare war. But U.S. presidents have long stretched their powers to use the might of the U.S. military around the globe.
Ohio State University professor Peter Mansoor, a military historian and retired U.S. Army colonel with multiple combat tours, said that trend since World War II allows Congress to shirk responsibility for war and put all the risk on the president.
In the post-Vietnam War era, lawmakers tried to take back some of their authority over wartime powers with the War Powers Resolution of 1973. It allows lawmakers to hold votes on resolutions to restrict a president from using military force in specific conflicts without congressional approval.
“Politicians tend to like to evade responsibility for anything — but then this gets you into forever wars,” Mansoor said.
Trump’s shifting rationale for military intervention
Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.
As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.
In a classified briefing Tuesday, senators reviewed the Trump administration’s still undisclosed legal opinion for using the military for the operation. It was described as a lengthy document.
But lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump’s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that “ help is on its way.”
Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vice President JD Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s recent aggression amounted to a “dangerous drift towards endless war.”
More than half of U.S. adults believe President Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
How Senate will tackle the war powers resolution
Republican Senate leaders were looking for ways to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.
In a floor speech Wednesday morning, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., vented his frustration as he questioned whether this war powers resolution should be prioritized under the chamber’s rules.
“We have no troops on the ground in Venezuela. We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” he said. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”
Republican leaders could move to dismiss the measure under the argument that it is irrelevant to the current situation in Venezuela, but that procedure would still receive a vote.
House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.
Groves writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.
President Trump seemed angry after the Senate voted last Thursday to pass a war powers resolution to the next stage, where lawmakers could approve the measure and seek to curb the president’s ability to wage war in Venezuela without congressional authorization.
Trump said that day that five Republican senators who supported bringing the measure to a vote — Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Rand Paul (Ky.), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Todd Young (Ind.) — “should never be elected to office again.”
Why should he get so riled up about this, to the point where he could put his own party’s control of the Senate at risk in November? Even if this resolution were to pass both houses of Congress, he could veto it and ultimately be unrestrained. He did this in 2019, when a war powers resolution mandating that the U.S. military cease its participation in the war in Yemen was passed in both the Senate and the House. Many people think that such legislation therefore can’t make a difference.
But the president’s ire is telling. These political moves on the Hill can get results even before the resolution has a final vote, or if it is vetoed by the president.
The Trump administration made significant concessions before the 2019 resolution was approved by Congress, in an attempt to prevent it from passing. For instance, months before it was approved, the U.S. military stopped refueling Saudi warplanes in midair. These concessions de-escalated the war and saved tens of thousands of lives.
A war powers resolution is an act of Congress that is based on a 1973 law of the same name. That law spells out and reinforces the power that our Constitution has allocated to Congress, to decide when the U.S. military can be involved in hostilities.
The U.S. military raid in Caracas that seized Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, is illegal according to international law, the charters of the Organization of American States and the United Nations, as well as other treaties to which the United States is a signatory. According to our own Constitution, the government violates U.S. law when it violates treaties that our government has signed.
None of that restrained the Trump administration, which has not demonstrated much respect for the rule of law. But the White House does care about the political power of Congress. If there is an expanded war in Venezuela or anywhere else that Trump has threatened to use the military, the fact that Congress took steps to oppose it will increase the political cost to the president.
This is likely one of the main reasons that the Trump administration has at least promised to make concessions regarding military action in Latin America — and who knows, possibly he did make some compromises compared with what had been planned.
On Nov. 5, the day before the Senate was to vote on a war powers resolution to halt and prevent hostilities within or against Venezuela by U.S. armed forces, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and White House counsel had a private briefing with senators.
They assured lawmakers that they were not going to have a land war or airstrikes in Venezuela. According to news reports, the White House counsel stated that they did not have a legal justification for such a war. It is clear that blocking the resolution was very important to these top officials. The day after that meeting, the war powers resolution was blocked by two votes. Two Republicans had joined the Democrats and independents in support of the resolution: Murkowski and Paul. That added up to 49 votes — not quite the needed majority.
But on Thursday, there were three additional Republicans who voted for the new resolution, so it will proceed to a final vote.
The war powers resolution is not just a political fight, but a matter of life and death. The blockade involved in the seizure of oil tankers is, according to experts, an unlawful use of military force. This means that the blockade would be included as a participation in hostilities that would require authorization from Congress.
Since 2015, the United States has imposed unilateral economic sanctions that destroyed Venezuela’s economy. From 2012 to 2020, Venezuela suffered the worst peacetime depression in world history. Real (inflation-adjusted) GDP, or income, fell by 74%. Think of the economic destruction of the U.S. Great Depression, multiplied by three times. Most of this was the result of the sanctions.
This unprecedented devastation is generally attributed to Maduro in public discussion. But U.S. sanctions deliberately cut Venezuela off from international finance, as well as blocking most of its oil sales, which accounted for more than 90% of foreign exchange (mostly dollar) earnings. This devastated the economy.
In the first year of Trump sanctions from 2017-18, Venezuela’s deaths increased by tens of thousands of people, at a time when oil prices were increasing. Sanctions were expanded even more the following year. About a quarter of the population, more than 7 million people, emigrated after 2015 — 750,000 of them to the United States.
We know that the deadly impact of sanctions that target the civilian population is real. Research published in July by the Lancet Global Health, by my colleagues Francisco Rodriguez, Silvio Rendon and myself, estimated the global death toll from unilateral economic sanctions, as these are, at 564,000 per year over the past decade. This is comparable to the worldwide deaths from armed conflict. A majority of the victims over the 1970-2021 period were children.
The Trump administration has, in the last few days, been moving in the direction of lifting some sanctions to allow for oil exports, according to the president’s stated plan to “run Venezuela.” This is ironic because Venezuela has for many years wanted more investment and trade, including in oil, with the United States, and it was U.S. sanctions that prohibited it.
Such lifting of sanctions would be a big step forward, in terms of saving lives of people who are deprived of food, medicine and other necessities in Venezuela, as a result of these sanctions and the economic destruction that they cause.
But to create the stability that Venezuela needs to recover, we will have to take the military and economic violence out of this campaign. There are members of Congress moving toward that goal, and they need all the help that they can get, before it’s too late.
The betting markets suddenly jumped to near 100% that Trump will “invoke war powers” against Venezuela. What does it mean? The President, exercising his commander-in-chief authority, would order military action and then initiate the legal process that follows when U.S. forces are deployed into hostilities.
A few weeks ago we published a piece on what Polymarket and the debt surge could reveal about the Venezuela conflict. There was a nugget on what happened the day before María Corina Machado received the Nobel peace prize:
“The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Maria Corina Machado made the news due to the behaviour of the Polymarket odds. Machado had a winning probability of around 3.5% around 12 hours prior to the announcement. Then, it shot up to a 73% probability of Machado taking the prize. This led to speculation that information was leaked, giving some traders room to cash in on bets in her favour. The ability of the site to “predict” an outcome, in this case, seems to be no more than information asymmetry. Someone out there had better (insider) intelligence, and simply traded on that information.“
Moreover, the night before the Maduro extraction, this happened:
Someone made $408,000 by placing a $30,000 bet in the nick of time. It obviously doesn’t mean that it’s going to happen in this case, pero cuando el río suena… One user placed around $15,000 during the past 6 hours on Trump invoking War Powers on Venezuela. Maybe someone knows something, or they’re just going on a limb because they saw The Verge post.
On War Powers
Under Article II of the US Constitution, presidents have long argued they can initiate certain military operations to defend U.S. interests without waiting for Congress, especially if they frame it as limited, urgent, or defensive. The War Powers Resolution (1973) was intended to impose limits on this authority: once forces are committed, the President must notify Congress within 48 hours, and the operation has a 60-day clock, unless Congress authorizes it or extends it. The US, after all, is a democracy with established separations of powers. Right? It’s likely to get messy in Congress, but we’ll see.
So why reach for that toolbox now, especially if Maduro has already been extracted? And why didn’t it need to before? Because Maduro’s removal was carried out through legal warrants, in coordination with the DEA, in other words, it was done through other legal motions. In this new transition, if the U.S. wants the option to use force quickly (without having to establish the legal basis for it every time), having the “war powers” gives Trump the legal framework to continue using force.
Now, Polymarket shows a sudden, overnight repricing of almost 100%, as if someone had entered the market with new information. Prediction markets can move on leaks or real inside signals. In other words: does someone know something and wants to profit out of it? Does it flag imminent action? The next few days will tell, but with confidence it is almost a certainty that Trump will request (or invoke!) such powers.
Ethan Hill and Shalen Sheppard were the twin towers for Brentwood’s boys basketball team last winter. Now, without one of his best buddies, Hill is learning to cope just fine — and his teammates are following his lead.
The 6-foot-7 sophomore forward had 32 points and 18 rebounds while earning all-tournament honors as the Eagles held off Millikan 75-68 to win the Silver Division championship Tuesday afternoon in the Classic at Damien.
To the surprise of his coaches and teammates, Sheppard decided at the end of September to transfer to Crossroads in Santa Monica. He is one of the highest-rated players in his graduating class.
Shalen Sheppard scores 22 points for Crossroads in a Gold Division consolation game against San Joaquin Memorial during the Classic at Damien on Dec. 30, 2025.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
“Honestly, I was just shocked,” Hill said upon learning of Sheppard’s departure. “We’ve been playing together since eighth grade. We just had the craziest chemistry. It’s a bigger challenge without him, but I believe we’re up to it. Our coaching staff pushed us hard every day.”
Led by their two fantastic freshmen, the Eagles went 25-5 last season. Sheppard averaged 16.6 points and 8.0 rebounds per game while Hill averaged 8.4 points and 5.5 rebounds.
“Leaving Ethan was one of the hardest parts about transferring,” said Sheppard, who scored 22 points in the Roadrunners’ 57-48 loss to San Joaquin Memorial in a Gold Division consolation game earlier in the day at Ramona Middle School. “I play AAU with him and he’s one of the first people I called the night I decided.”
The sit-out period for transfers ended right before the Damien tournament. With four games under his belt, Sheppard is adjusting to being without his frontcourt mate.
“I was getting double-teamed a lot so I got a little tired but as a squad we’re playing real tough teams right now,” he said. “It’s hard without Ethan. Him being a big body and taking up the middle cleared a lot of space for me. I might go over and watch his game later.”
Crossroads (9-8) faces a huge test Saturday against Crean Lutheran, ranked fifth in the Southland by The Times. On Tuesday, Crean Lutheran fell to No. 10 Crespi 57-54 for third in the Platinum Division.
“I have more gym time because Crossroads is not as academically rigid,” Sheppard said. “Traffic was a factor also. I live in the same place, but I can take the Metro or the bus to school. Sunset [Boulevard] at rush hour wasn’t fun.”
Brentwood guard AJ Okoh drives for a layup on his way to MVP honors in the Silver Division championship game of the Classic at Damien on Tuesday.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Meanwhile, Hill and junior guard AJ Okoh are building chemistry, and it showed against Millikan. Okoh dished out four assists and scored 23 points, including a three-pointer which gave the Eagles a five-point cushion with 1:30 remaining. He was named most valuable player. Fellow guard Auggie Sugarman netted 14 points and named to the all-tournament team.
“AJ and I complement each other well,” said Hill, whose scoring was as balanced as can be — 11 points in the first quarter, six in the second, eight in the third and seven in the fourth. “He gets downhill quick and his passing ability is amazing.”
Senior Jeremiah Hunt made seven three-pointers to keep the Rams (11-6) in striking distance and finished with a game-high 34 points. Freshman guard Quali Giran, who entered the contest averaging 24.5 points per game, finished with 18 points and eight assists and joined Hunt on the all-tournament team.
Crespi’s Rodney Mukendi tries to block a jump shot by Crean Lutheran’s Chadrack Mpoyi in the third-place game of the Platinum Division in The Classic at Damien on Dec. 30, 2025.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Brentwood, ranked 19th in The Times’ Top 25 poll, has won seven in a row since its lone loss to Goodyear (Ariz.) Millennium on Dec. 17 and improved to 17-1. The Eagles beat Woodland Hills Taft, Newport Beach Pacifica Christian and Dublin on their way to the finals.
“Not having Shalen puts a lot more attention on me and that frees up my teammates,” Hill said. “We have the same goal, to go all the way and I have all the confidence and belief in us.”
Hill and Sheppard look forward to reuniting Jan. 9 in the first of two Gold Coast League matchups between their schools.
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.
