PRESEASON FINALE – Kings 3, Vegas 2 – Jeannot, Foegele, Hiller

The LA Kings picked up their first win of the preseason on Wednesday night with a 3-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.

The Kings took a 2-0 lead late in the first half by scoring two goals in just 28 seconds to take a lead.

First, forward Alex Laferriere opened the scoring on a power play with the first goal of the game, his first of the preseason. Forward Kevin Fiala worked his way from the top of the left circle and brought the puck in front of the net, where forward Alex Turcotte won a battle and fed Laferriere, who scored at the far post to make it 1-0.

Less than 30 seconds later, forward Tanner Jeannot increased the lead to 2-0 with his first goal in a Kings jersey. Forward Warren Foegele reached the blue line in transition and threw a puck to Jeannot from the rush. Jeannot collected the puck in the right circle and shot it cleanly past Vegas goalie Ilya Samsonov. It was his first goal of the preseason and a two-goal lead before the first intermission.

Early in the second period, the Golden Knights were able to cut the deficit in transition with a goal from defenseman Noah Hanifin. The Kings were in trouble in the offensive zone with four players under the puck and Vegas took advantage. Forward Tanner Laczynski found the free man Hanifin, who scored his team's first goal and cut the score to 2-1.

The Kings, however, recouped that goal and entered the second period with a two-goal lead. Fiala started his second shot of the night when he made a nifty move to create space in the slot, and forward Warren Foegele finally finished the play from close range, just outside the crease, for his first goal of the preseason and a 3-1 lead. Fiala and Foegele each picked up their second points of the game, while forward Quinton Byfield also recorded an assist on the play.

The Kings made a scheduled goalie change after 40 minutes. Carter George came in for Darcy Kuemper. Kuemper finished his night with 11 saves on 12 shots in his first preseason appearance.

Vegas got within one goal just over five minutes into the third period. Laferriere's cross pass was intercepted in the defensive zone by Laczynski, who beat new goalie George with a shot from the slot to cut the game to one goal. From that point on, George and the Kings held on to the 3-2 victory.

During the opening period, Kings defenseman Drew Doughty left the game with a lower-body injury and did not return. According to head coach Jim Hiller, there was no update on Doughty's status after the game other than the lower-body injury. The plan is to return to Los Angeles and “take a closer look” with the Kings' medical team. Until then, Hiller said, Doughty's status is uncertain.

Hear what Jeannot, Foegele and Hiller have to say after today's game.

Warren Foegele

Tanner Jeannot
About his impressions of his first preseason game with the Kings
Yes, I think we did quite well. Everyone is trying to learn the new system and then implement it. So there is a lot of talking, a lot of chemistry between the lines and I think the most important thing is that everyone just works hard. I think everyone did that really well tonight and we got a good result.

On the difficulties of continuing to play after seeing a player like Drew Doughty go down like that
You never want to see that, you know, we definitely felt it on the bench. Obviously he's a leader on this team, he's been around forever, but it just sucks. I thought the guys put that behind them for a second and finished the game and did their job. Now we can see how Dewey is doing and help him get through it. I don't know what's going on yet, but we're just helping him get through it.

On the further development of chemistry with Phillip Danault and Trevor Moore and his findings from Game 1 together
I'm really excited to play with both of them. They've obviously been playing together for a long time and have developed great chemistry. So I'm trying to talk to them as much as I can, explain my tendencies, find out theirs and talk about it so we can do our best and bring my skills to them. It's a good step tonight and I just want to keep building on that.

On the interchangeability between him and Moore with Side of the Ice
I think so, yeah, we're both pretty comfortable on both sides, so it's just what we want to do, whatever we feel, and we just have to talk it out. So yeah, it's pretty easy.

About his goal tonight and his long-range shot
Most of my goals I don't score from that far away from the goal. I usually just smack the rebound or something like that, but no, it was hard to play in the D-zone. We took it out and got a power play there. Foegs made a good play to get the ball back to me and I just used the D-zone as a screen to take the shot and it went in for me.

Jim Hiller
Whether there is further news on Drew Doughty's status
No more than you already know. We'll come home and look at it then. Until we look at it with our people, we won't know for sure.

On the challenges for a team to return to the game after Doughty's injury
Nobody feels good about it, you know, when you see a guy like that, everybody knows Drew is a warrior, he's not going to leave the ice unless he's hurt, for sure. It's disappointing because you don't know, right? It's the unknown. You have to go out there and play, but I think it took some life out of us in the second half of the game, no question. In the meantime, I think Spence and Burroughs, the two left right defensemen, got some minutes and made some pretty good plays.

About his first impressions of the Fiala/Byfield/Foegele line
I thought they started really well, that was obvious. They were really good in the first period. Then with the power plays. I thought we lost our flow a little bit in the second half of the 5v5 and probably threw them off, but the first period was what we expected from them.

On recognizing individual errors when conceding goals and how he evaluates them in a warm-up match
Yeah, we look at our team play more than anything and so the individual mistakes are the individual mistakes at this point. We have to make sure our team play is right and then obviously the guys know they just can't do that, that's hockey 101. Our team play was largely due to a bad changeup, one time we misjudged the neutral zone in the second period, but I think other than that we did pretty well.

About the game of Carter George, who played in two games as a young goalkeeper
What I noticed in both games was he seemed really calm. He doesn't waste a lot of movement and I thought it was great how he finished the game. He had to hold the lead and all of a sudden there was traffic, he fought through the traffic and let it hit him. Just a really impressive performance from him in the second half and from Kuemps early in the game. He's officially put the Kings jersey back on, it's been a long time for him and he definitely picked up where he left off with the Kings.

On Jordan Spence's game and how he is progressing this season
I think so. Spenny was a really offensive defender in the American League and we need him here to be a very solid defender. He'll get points here and there, but we just need that defensive game, solid, predictable and I think he needs to work on that. Tonight I thought he did that pretty well.