Anton Forsberg made 29 saves, Alex Laferriere scored in the second period and the Kings beat the Calgary Flames 2-0 on Saturday night to end a five-game losing streak.
Forsberg had his second shutout of the season and 10th of his NHL career, two nights after coming on in relief of Darcy Kuemper in the second period of an 8-1 home loss to Edmonton.
Laferriere scored with 4:24 left in second, putting his own rebound past goalie Dustin Wolf for his 14th goal of the season. Adrian Kempe added his 22nd into an empty net in the final minute.
Wolf made 35 saves. He spent seven years in the Los Angeles Junior Kings youth program before playing major junior for Everett in the Western Hockey League.
The Kings have three games left on a six-game homestand.
Up next for the Kings: vs. Colorado at Crypto.com Arena on Monday night.
Welcome to your daily review and preview of this year’s Milan-Cortina Olympics. My name is John Cherwa and I’m your tour director for the Games as the U.S. finds a new star in speed skater Jason Stoltz. The U.S. got the trifecta on Saturday with a gold, silver and bronze.
Going into the Games, the U.S. had its usual cadre of star power that was supposed to propel the country to the top of the medal standings. But then reality set in. Ilia Malinin had a good lead heading into the free skate in men’s figure skating. Then, he had a ghastly performance, falling twice, and slipping to eighth. Chloe Kim, two-time Olympic champion in the women’s halfpipe, struggled for repeated clean runs and finished second. Then, dreamers believed Lindsey Vonn, skating with a torn ACL, could navigate the women’s downhill to the medal podium. She crashed high in the course.
Enter the latest star for the United States. Speed skater Jordan Stolz, who picked up his second gold of the Games by winning the men’s 500 meters to go with his gold in the 1,000 meters. Both were set in Olympic record time. The 21-year-old from Wisconsin still has at least two events to go, hoping to up his personal and the U.S. medal count. He’s set to compete in the men’s 1,500 (Thursday), and the men’s mass start (Saturday).
The only other medals the U.S. won on Saturday were in the freestyle skiing women’s dual moguls. An Aussie was the winner, but Jaelin Kauf got the silver and Liz Lemley (not to be confused with 30 Rock’s Liz Lemon) won the B final for the bronze. This was the first appearance of dual moguls in the Olympics.
Catching up on the men’s hockey stage, the Kings suffered a severe blow when forward Kevin Fiala sustained a season-ending injury playing for Switzerland on Friday. Fiala had a tough collision with Canada’s Tom Wilson with only a couple of minutes to play in the game. He was stretchered off with a lower leg injury. He had surgery in Italy on Saturday morning and was said to be done for both Olympic and NHL competition the rest of this season.
The Kings are on the cusp of making the playoffs and this, no doubt, will make their road to the postseason that much more difficult. Fiala had 18 goals and 40 points so far this season in 56 games.
NBC should ask Today show personalities Craig Melvin, Al Roker and Dylan Dryer to turn in their journalistic credentials after an embarrassing, saccharine interview with IOC President Kirsty Coventry on the Third Hour of “Today” on Friday. There should have been a warning that watching the interview could cause an immediate increase in blood sugar. The trio, doing the interview from New York, covered such difficult topics of how much fun everyone is having in Italy, how the Olympic spirit is pervasive and, of course, how cuddly the mascots are.
But in no way did they address what would have been the first question any legit journalist would ask, Coventry’s barring of Ukranian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych for wanting to honor his fallen Ukranian athletes with stickers on his racing helmet was never mentioned. We’ll give you that Roker and Dryer are meteorologists, but there is no excuse for Melvin’s lack of journalistic chops.
Elsewhere on Saturday
— Good day for U.S. curlers as the women (2-1 record) beat Japan 7-4, while the men (2-2) beat Germany 8-6. (Valentine’s Day moment at restaurant. My wife: “Are you the only one here straining to see the curling score on TV?” Answer: “Yes.”)
— The U.S. men’s team (2-0) rallied from a 2-1 deficit to beat Denmark 6-3. Germany is next.
— Brazil topped three Swiss skiers, who finished second through fourth, to win the men’s giant slalom. River Radamus of the U.S. was 17th.
— Norway, on its way to its 10th gold medal, won the women’s 4×7.5 km cross country relay, upsetting Sweden. The U.S. managed a fifth-place finish.
— Austria upset Germany, which finished second and third, in the women’s skeleton. Kelly Curtis of the U.S. was 12th.
—- Slovenia picked up its first gold of the Games in the men’s ski jumping, large hill. Tate Frantz of the U.S. was 19th.
— Norway — who else? — won the women’s 7.5 km sprint in the biathlon. France got silver and bronze. Deedra Irwin was the top U.S. competitor in 47th.
Best Thing to Watch on TV today
We went off the board yesterday and picked the men’s 500 in speed skating as our best bet. Turned out a wise choice. Today, let’s make another swerve and look to the mixed team snowboard cross, in which the U.S. is the defending gold champion. You’ve got returnee Nick Baumgartner, 44, with new partner Faye Thelen. He won gold in Beijing with Lindsey Jacobellis, who is taking a break this year. The qualification starts at 4:45 a.m. PST, with the finals at 5:35 a.m. PST. After a day off, the figure skating gets back on the ice with the pairs short program. The U.S. team of Ellie Kim and Danny O’Shea is going 14th of 19th pairs with a 10:15 a.m. PST start for competition. The U.S. men’s hockey team (2-0) plays Germany at 12:10 p.m. PST.
Favorite photo of the day
The Netherlands’ speedskater Jenning de Boo clutches his head after losing to American Jordan Stolz in the 500 final in Milan on Saturday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Times photographer Robert Gauthier is at the Winter Olympics. Each day Times newsletter editor Houston Mitchell will select a favorite photo from the many he has taken.
Sunday’s Olympic TV and streaming schedule
Sunday’s live TV and streaming broadcasts for the Milan-Cortina Olympics unless noted (subject to change). All events stream live on Peacock or NBCOlympics.com with a streaming or cable login. All times Pacific. 🏅 — medal event for live broadcasts.
MULTIPLE SPORTS 8 p.m. — “Primetime in Milan” (delay): Skiing, figure skating, bobsled, speedskating and more. | NBC
ALPINE SKIING 1 a.m. — Women’s giant slalom, Run 1 | USA 4:30 a.m. — 🏅Women’s giant slalom, Run 2 | NBC
CURLING Men (round robin) 12:05 a.m. — U.S. vs. Sweden | Peacock 12:05 a.m. — Germany vs. Britain | Peacock 12:05 a.m. — Norway vs. Italy | Peacock Women (round robin) 5:05 a.m. — U.S. vs. China | Peacock 5:05 a.m. — Denmark vs. Italy | Peacock 5:05 a.m. — Britain vs. Sweden | Peacock 5:05 a.m. — Japan vs. South Korea | Peacock 5:30 a.m. — U.S. vs. China (in progress) | CNBC Men (round robin) 8 a.m. — U.S. vs. Sweden (delay) | CNBC 10:05 a.m. — U.S. vs. Norway | Peacock 10:05 a.m. — China vs. Canada | Peacock 10:05 a.m. — Britain vs. Switzerland | Peacock 10:05 a.m. — Italy vs. Czechia | Peacock
FIGURE SKATING 8:20 a.m. — Pairs, short program, warmup | Peacock 10:30 a.m. — Pairs, short program | USA Noon — Pairs, short program | NBC
FREESTYLE SKIING 1:40 a.m. — 🏅Men’s dual moguls, final | USA 9:30 a.m. — Men’s dual moguls, final (re-air) | NBC 10:40 a.m. — Men’s big air, qualifying | NBC
HOCKEY Men (group play) 3 a.m. — Switzerland vs. Czechia | CNBC 7:40 a.m. — Canada vs. France | USA 10 a.m. — Denmark vs. Latvia | CNBC 12:10 p.m. — U.S. vs. Germany | USA
SKELETON 9 a.m. — 🏅Mixed team event | Peacock 10:15 a.m. — Mixed team event (delay) | NBC
SKI JUMPING 8:30 a.m. — 🏅Women’s large hill, finals | Peacock
SNOWBOARDING 4:45 a.m. — 🏅Mixed team snowboard cross, finals | USA 5:30 a.m. — Mixed team snowboard cross, finals | NBC
SPEEDSKATING 7 a.m. — Men’s team pursuit, qualifying | NBC 8 a.m. — 🏅Women’s 500 meters | NBC
In case you missed it …
Check out the following Milan-Cortina Olympics dispatches from the L.A. Times team on the ground in Italy:
That concludes today’s Sports Report Olympic Edition newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email newsletter editor Houston Mitchell at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here and select the Sports Report.
