The Coyotes came into Los Angeles on the second half of a back-to-back looking to stay hot after beating the Vegas Golden Knights for the first time ever, 3-2 the previous night.

Coming into the contest, the Kings sat in the 3rd pacific division playoff spot, tied with St. Louis and Anaheim, who currently hold the two wild card spots. They needed these two points to stay afloat, especially with Colorado hot on all of their heels.

Game Summary

The first period was dominated by the Coyotes for the first 15 or so minutes. The Kings looked slow and the Coyotes were pushing the pace.

On a clean zone entry Max Domi found Kevin Connauton who buried a hard angle shot setting a new career high for himself (10 goals).

Then with about five minutes left in the period, the Kings woke up. They carried the play all the way up until the buzzer including a Jeff Carter tip-in to tie the game at one.

The second started much the same as the Coyotes were generating offense off the rush, with Clayton Keller setting up some good looks.

After the Coyotes started to get their offense going, Max Domi buried a rebound on the backhand to take the lead once more. Trevor Murphy would pick up his first career assist on this goal.

The Kings would not back down.

After a Goligoski interference call, Jeff Carter deflected yet another goal on the power play to tie the game, again.

That’s when Jakob Chychrun took a 4 minute double-minor for high sticking. Due to the Coyotes lack of success on the penalty kill as of late, there was concern as to whether they could kill this off.

Well, they did and quite nicely too as Rinaldo and Stepan had some short-handed opportunities on Jack Campbell.

They killed off the entirety of the double minor, including the 27 seconds of leftover time in the third.

From then on it was virtually all Kings. They dictated the play and they were forcing the Coyotes to make mistakes.

Even with a power play that had some good looks, the Coyotes couldn’t solve the Kings defense.

Then down in the corner, former Coyote Tobias Rieder worked the puck off the wall and Jeff Carter came down and sniped his hat trick goal.

The Coyotes tried to stage a comeback, but a late period penalty by Max Domi stifled that. Even with the high stick on Keller to even the ice, Kopitar iced the game with an empty netter.

The Kings got their much needed two points and the Coyotes head back to Arizona after a finishing their six game road trip.

3 Stars of the Night

1st Star - Jeff Carter: Carter netted a hat trick, including a pair of deflections, leading the Kings to a victory.

2nd Star - Max Domi: Domi assisted on the first goal of the night and scored on of his own (1-1-2).

3rd Star - Tyler Toffoli: Toffoli notched 2 assists on the night including the game winner from Jeff Carter.

Looking Ahead

The Coyotes come back from their road trip where they went 3-2-1 over that period. They’ll face off against the St. Louis Blues this Saturday 3/31 for their second to last home game of the season. Puck drops at 6:00pm, if you can’t be there, watch it on Fox Sports Arizona.