LOS ANGELES –– With razor-thin margins and bone-dry offense, the Kings prepared to receive Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday for the first of two consecutive meetings in downtown L.A.
Bedard, 20, scored as many points in November alone as any King has accumulated all season. He has five goals and seven assists in his past eight appearances. His 38 points are more than Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala have combined to compile this year.
In their seven regulation losses, the Kings (12-7-7) have scored two or fewer goals in each one and a solitary tally in four such defeats, including their 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday. Twenty-one of their 26 games have been decided by a goal or a goal plus an empty-netter, returning them to a position similar to 2023-24’s freefall in which they had little if any room for error.
Still, Adrian Kempe, who scored the only Kings goal Tuesday, remained optimistic.
“If we keep doing the right things and we keep playing this way, the puck’s going to start going in for us more,” he said after the loss.
Yet the Kings’ offense had hardly just started sputtering.
Over the prior two campaigns, the Kings had a hot start to 2023-24 and enjoyed a scorching finish to 2024-25. But between Dec. 4, 2023, and March 7, 2025 – the vast majority of two seasons – the Kings posted the fifth-lowest average scoring output in the NHL. Their power play placed them in the bottom quarter of the league during that span.
This season, they are fourth from the bottom in goals per game and power-play conversion rate. After scoring with the man advantage in consecutive games to open the campaign, the Kings’ power play has been dead last ever since, with a scoring average to match since Nov. 12.
They also rank 24th of 32 teams in five-on-five scoring chances this season, per Natural Stat Trick, though Kempe didn’t seem to consider it a concern. He pointed to the Kings’ stalwart defense (fifth in the NHL in goals allowed per game) and some unjust verdicts from the hockey gods.
“It sucks when you come up short and you feel like you played a good game, you feel like you deserved more,” he said. “It’s been like that quite a few times this year, where we end up short, but we feel like we’re the better team.”
The Kings did beat the Blackhawks in Chicago back on Oct. 26, with Bedard scoring the lone goal for the hosts before Joel Armia’s shorthanded empty-netter iced the Kings’ cake.
Despite Bedard’s emergence, the ‘Hawks have remained streaky. Last month, they won five of six games, but followed that up with their active stretch with six losses in seven chances.
Chicago at Kings
When: 7 p.m. Thursday
Where: Crypto.com Arena
TV: ESPN+, Hulu