It's been tough sledding for Jim Hiller and his Los Angeles Kings in the early going of the 2025-26 NHL season. After falling 4-2 to the Pittsburgh Penguins on home ice on Thursday night, the squad has dropped to 1-3-1 and sixth place in the Pacific Division.
“We're in a hole,” Hiller admitted to reporters after a third consecutive defeat, per The Athletic's Eric Stephens. “We're in a funk. There's no question.”
The Kings were missing Anze Kopitar due to a lower-body injury; the captain had recorded an assist in each of Los Angeles' first four games. Starting goaltender Darcy Kuemper is also day-to-day with an ailment of his own.
Still, the team got off to a great start, putting two pucks past Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs before the contest was 10 minutes old. Warren Foegele got the scoring started less than five minutes in, and Kevin Fiala doubled the lead just under five minutes later.
But the Kings didn't put another one past the Latvian netminder, going 0-2 on the powerplay while allowing Pittsburgh to score with the man advantage.
“We haven’t won the special teams battle yet this season,” Hiller said, per NHL.com's Dan Greenspan. “That’s an important part of any hockey game is the special teams battle. Hard to win if you don’t win the special teams battle, so that’s the one area that was most disappointing.”
Kings have a gauntlet of an early season schedule
Probably no team in the National Hockey League has a more difficult strength of schedule to start the 2025-26 campaign than Hiller's Kings.
LA began the year losing to the Colorado Avalanche, who still haven't lost in regulation through their first five tilts. That preceded a three-game road trip against three strong playoff contenders in the Vegas Golden Knights, Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild, respectively.
The Kings were able to beat the Knights in a shootout, but suffered a pair of tough one-goal losses to the Jets and Wild. The Penguins were the most beatable team they have played early on, but after a hot start to the contest, the club was unable to right the ship at Crypto.com Arena.
“We’ve shown that we can have really good periods, and then for whatever reason it just gets away from us,” said forward Trevor Moore, who assisted on the opening goal. “We just got to put it all together, and we will. It’s still early in the year, can’t panic yet, but we’ll be fine.”
There's certainly no reason to panic just yet, but the schedule does not let up for the Kings. Up next is a date with the undefeated Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night, who are fresh off beating the Anaheim Ducks 4-1 on Thursday.
Then, the Kings embark on an eight-day, five-game road trip.
So, although the team hasn't been as potent as the start of last season, it's been a remarkably difficult schedule in the early going. With Kopitar back in the lineup, LA should be just fine.
But they'd love to get back in the win column against a powerhouse Canes team on Saturday night.
