Adrian Kempe, Phillip Danault lead Kings past Kraken 3-1

SEATTLE (AP) — Adrian Kempe scored his 17th goal of the season early in the first period, Phillip Danault scored twice and the Los Angeles Kings beat the Seattle Kraken 3-1 Saturday night for their fourth straight win.

Los Angeles won for the sixth time in its past seven, jumping to a 2-0 lead while clamping down on defense.

“They caught us off guard a little bit. They played very hard and they played the right way,” Danault said. “They were a tough team to play today and I thought we battled well and then we scored some big goals.”

Seattle lost its ninth straight and has dropped 12 of 13. Marcus Johansson scored on a power play in the second period, but the Kraken were limited to 18 shots on goal against Cal Petersen.

Petersen won his fourth straight start and made a handful of key saves despite Seattle second-lowest shot total of the season.

Chris Dreidger made 19 stops but lost his second straight start. Dreidger started Thursday’s 2-1 loss in St. Louis.

“Something’s got to change here. I mean, it’s completely unacceptable to drop nine in a row,” Dreidger said. “I mean, there’s no other way to put it.”

Kempe grabbed the rebound of Alex Iafallo’s shot 4:06 into the game, maneuvered around Dreidger and scored. He’s reached a career high in goals 38 games into the season after scoring 16 goals in 81 games in 2017-18. The 25-year-old has four goals in the past six games.

“For us he’s a great example of being patient with development,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “It would have been easy for us to turn our back on him at some point when it wasn’t going good and he on us as well, but stuck with it and over time he just got better and better.”

Los Angeles took a 2-0 lead when Danault chopped a rebound past Dreidger 4:10 into the second period. Mikey Anderson had the initial shot out of midair that Dreidger saved, but Danault was able to get his stick on the rebound.

Danault and added an empty-netter in the last minute. He’s got nine goals in 36 games after scoring five in 53 games last season with Montreal.

“You play well defensively as a team it brings the offense and then you find the blue paint,” Danault said. “A good grind but a couple good goals.”

Seattle answered on the power play after Matt Roy was called for a double minor for high sticking. Johansson was stopped on a breakaway earlier in the period, but he scored his fourth of the season and third on the power play to pull Seattle within 2-1. Mark Giordano’s shot from the point was tipped by Calle Jarnkrok, and Johansson finished off the goal.

The Kraken briefly thought they had pulled even late in the second period when Ryan Donato’s shot appeared to beat Andersen, momentarily setting off the ferry horn siren. video review showed the shot clipped Andersen’s shoulder and the crossbar but stayed out.

“It’s hard losing hockey games when you’re in a stretch like this,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “But at the end of the day we got to look at it, we got to find a way to get a little bit more out of our group.”

NOTES: Los Angeles F Samuel Fagemo and D Jacob Moverare were recalled to the Kings from the taxi squad, but both were scratched. … Seattle F Morgan Geekie missed his third straight game with an upper-body injury. Seattle also scratched D Will Borgen and Haydn Fleury. … Seattle unveiled a new splashy 4 ½ minute pregame intro featuring flashy lights, images of water portraited on the ice and a menacing eye projected on a one end of the arena.

UP NEXT

Kings: Los Angeles is at San Jose on Monday.

Kraken: Seattle hosts Chicago on Monday.

___

More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.