Darcy Kuemper gets shutout as Kings stifle Ducks in preseason game

ANAHEIM — The Kings dispatched the Ducks in a second straight preseason meeting, prevailing 4-0 on Monday night at Honda Center, where new and new-ish faces excelled for the visitors.

Trade acquisition Tanner Jeannot contributed a goal and an assist to match the total of aspiring forward Akil Thomas, while free-agent signing Warren Foegele had a spectacular secondary assist to aid the cause of another trade pickup, the re-acquired Darcy Kuemper, who turned in a 23-save shutout. The Kings also got goals from Quinton Byfield and Vladislav Gavrikov.

Oscar Dansk, who was auditioning for an early-season backup role with John Gibson recovering from an appendectomy, stopped 21 shots for the Ducks.

After a bit of wobbly start, the Kings took over.

“I didn’t think we played our game at all in the first period, but you saw kind of a refocus and we came out and played how we wanted to play, and when we did that, we were pretty effective,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said.

After a competitive opening 20 minutes, the Kings carried the second period, stretching their lead to three with two goals in the first 5:10 of the middle frame.

“We were pretty stable, I felt, defensively, but they got those opportunistic goals in the second period,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “We had a D pinching without a high F3, and a two-on-one turns into a three-on-two and it’s in the net, and then, shortly after that, we just have a lapse in the D zone, we had two D caught outside their primary coverage area.”

Just 1:22 into the period, Foegele displayed some wizardry with a deft backhanded outlet pass from the defensive zone to the red line that sprung Kevin Fiala. He found a trailing Gavrikov, who passed the puck back to Fiala, only to receive it anew for a goal off the rush that elicited his patented “call me” celebration.

At the 5:10 mark, Jeannot ignited a scoring sequence with his physicality, hammering Sam Colangelo into the boards and dispossessing him of the puck. Jeannot slipped it to Phillip Danault, who pivoted below the goal line and made a silky pass from the left corner to the right post for Thomas, who had beaten Nikita Nesterenko to the net, where he redirected the puck home as he fell to the ice.

Thomas took the spot of Trevor Moore, who was a late scratch due to a coach’s decision.

“(Thomas) took (his opportunity) and ran with it,” Hiller said. “Tonight was his best game and he looked more like he did when he played for us in the stretch run last year than he has at any other time since the training camp started.”

The Kings padded their lead and concluded the scoring a mere 46 seconds into the third period with a power-play goal. After sending three players to the wall to win a board battle, the puck moved high to Jordan Spence, whose shot was deflected by Jack Studnicka, generating a rebound for Byfield, who scored off a snap shot.

The early going was defined by near-misses as three of the Ducks’ first four shot attempts were sterling chances, including a hit post by Nesterenko, a short-handed breakaway for Frank Vatrano and a superb opportunity for Sam Colangelo that Kuemper denied.

After Kuemper took a rare interference penalty for a goalie, the Kings nearly opened the scoring when Alex Turcotte’s shot dribbled through Dansk, only to teeter on the goal line for a couple of seconds before it was cleared to safety by Brian Dumoulin, who made his Ducks debut.

The lone goal of the period belonged to Jeannot, who first sent the puck high to Jacob Moverare and then secured inside position thanks, in part, to the blase defense of Trevor Zegras. Jeannot tipped Moverare’s shot attempt and then stuffed the rebound past Dansk, 12:58 into the match.

Moverare said he worked on his shot during the offseason and joked that “I’ve had a pretty soft muffin.” There was nothing soft, however, about the Kings’ shot-blocking, which Cronin praised for a second straight game, or their forecheck, which he and Dumoulin also lauded.

“They started establishing a forecheck and started coming up with all five guys,” Dumoulin said. “You could see them really swarm and put pressure on the walls.”

Both teams will ice something closer to their regular-season rosters in their final two outings, with the Ducks staying in-state for both but the Kings traveling to Quebec City to face the Boston Bruins and defending champion Florida Panthers.