After sweeping their home stand 3-0, Los Angeles headed up to Vancouver for the first stop of a four-game road trip. After falling to the Canucks in overtime on March 5, they looked to reclaim the lead in the season series 2-1. Seven minutes in, Kevin Fiala got the Kings on the board with his 24th goal of the season. The Canucks had the answer, however, with Sam Lafferty drilling a score to tie the game at 1 heading into the second period.

It was a quiet second frame for the most part before Los Angeles got to work in the final 4 minutes. Blake Lizotte put the squad back in front 2-1 with his 6th of the season. Less than two minutes later, Anze Kopitar came through with an insurance goal to give the Kings a 3-1 lead heading into the second intermission.

With 20 minutes standing between them and victory, Cam Talbot did a nice job preventing Vancouver from gathering any sort of comeback momentum. They did manage one score via Brock Boeser with less than 3 minutes to play, but that would be all for the Canucks. Los Angeles walked away with a nice 3-2 win to get their road trip going on a great note and pulled within one point of the Oilers for second place in the Pacific Division.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Kopitar makes the Canucks pay once again

Throughout his career, Anze Kopitar has consistently found a way to score against the Vancouver Canucks. Heading into Monday’s matchup, he had four points in his last four games against the division rivals. He kept his impressive play rolling once again as he added a score to help boost the Kings to victory.

Kopitar was able to tap in the rebound off his own shot following a scuffle around the net that left the puck right in front of him for the easy put-back. With 24 goals now scored this season, he has tied Kevin Fiala for second place on the Kings’ scoring list this year. Additionally, he has now taken the lead for the most points scored on the team this season with 64. The captain now has 5 points in his last 5 games versus the Canucks as well as 4 straight games with multiple points. It was the 16th multi-point performance for the captain this season and the 299th of his career. He is now just one multi-point game away from becoming the third player in franchise history to record 300 such performances, joining the likes of Luc Robitaille and Marcel Dionne. Kopitar is the third-oldest active player to post a multi-point streak of at least 4 games, behind just Alex Ovechkin and Joe Pavelski. His efforts against Vancouver were huge in the W and helped to prevent the Canucks from being the first team to officially clinch a playoff berth.

Talbot saves 21 to extend winning streak

Cam Talbot and the Kings have seemingly found a nice groove during the second half of March. Los Angeles has gone 5-1 since March 15, allowing Talbot to collect a few nice wins in a row. In the W over Vancouver, he saved 21 of 23 shots to hold things down nicely for the Kings. He allowed goals to Sam Lafferty in the first period and Brock Boeser in the final 3 minutes of regulation, but Los Angeles managed to hang on.

Talbot displayed a variety of impressive saves including a clutch stretch of play in the third period. He has now won 4 straight starts for the Kings, matching his longest streak of the season. At 5-2 this month, one more win would give him 6 in a month for just the second time this season. If he were to reach 7, March would officially become his winningest month of the season. The win improved his record overall to 23-16-6, which is already a 6-game improvement from last year. With a huge game up next against the Oilers, another gem from Talbot would boost the team in a big way.

Lizotte delivers a score in the W

Heading into Monday’s game in Vancouver, Blake Lizotte had picked up three points in his last three road games against the Canucks (dating back to November 18, 2022). He kept his impressive road play in Vancouver going with his 6th score of the season late in the second period.

It was just the 6th goal of the year for Lizotte, and his first since December 20th, 2023 in a 2-1 loss to the Kraken. He now has 4 points in his last 4 road games against the Canucks. After scoring a career-high 11 goals last season through 81 games played, he will do his best to keep up throughout the remainder of this season. Despite only playing in 51 of 71 games this season, Lizotte now has 6 or more scores in three consecutive campaigns. His goal was big in the win over Vancouver, and hopefully, he can use it to inspire some more frequent action throughout the final 11 games.

The Kings’ next stop on the road trip will be in Edmonton as they take on the Oilers in a huge battle on Thursday night. In the final game of the year between the two squads, Los Angeles will look to take over possession of second place in the Pacific Division from Edmonton. The Oilers currently hold a razor-thin 1-point lead over the Kings and will need the victory equally as bad. It should be a fierce battle between two teams fighting for playoff position in the Western Conference.

The game is scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m. PT.