Adrian Kempe Returns With a Hat Trick in the Kings' 7-2 Rout of San Jose

Adrian Kempe sat out one game, and whatever was bothering him looked just fine by Wednesday night. Back from the undisclosed injury that cost him Saturday's home loss to Buffalo, Kempe scored on a breakaway 83 seconds into the game at crypto.com Arena, scored again before the first period was over, and finished the fifth hat trick of his career on a second-period power play. Three goals, an assist, four shots in 17:23 of ice time — and a 7–2 Los Angeles Kings win over the San Jose Sharks that was settled early and only grew from there.

Eighty-three seconds was all it took

The first one came straight off a feed from Artemi Panarin: Kempe in alone, snap shot, 1–0 at 1:23 of the first. The second, at 16:09, was a one-timer from the right circle off passes from Erik Gustafsson and Brandt Clarke. Two minutes later Kempe had his assist, helping set up Quinton Byfield's power-play one-timer and a 3–0 lead by the intermission. The hat trick finished at 15:51 of the second — another one-timer, this one from the bottom of the right circle on the power play, fed by Alex Laferriere and Panarin to make it 5–1. Three of Kempe's four shots on the night went in.

The fifth one, counted carefully

It is the fifth hat trick of Kempe's NHL career, and that is the whole claim, counted carefully: a scan of his game logs back through 2017 — regular season only — turns up four before Wednesday, and the wire count agrees. No record attaches to it, and none needs inventing. Kempe is in the prime of a career spent entirely in Los Angeles, and he now has six goals on the young season. Nights like this are what the Kings count on him for.

He had plenty of company. Panarin assisted on four of the seven goals — two of Kempe's and both of Byfield's. Byfield scored two of the Kings' three power-play goals, Erik Haula added a goal and an assist, Joel Armia redirected one home early in the third, and Darcy Kuemper stopped 30 of the 32 shots he faced.

San Jose's long night

The Sharks' two goals both came on their own power play: Macklin Celebrini's snap shot at 5:07 of the second ended a six-game goalless drought, and Ivar Stenberg squeezed one through Kuemper at 9:41 of the third. Yaroslav Askarov faced 27 shots and took all seven goals. San Jose has lost five of its past six.

For Los Angeles, the shape of the season is quietly changing: the Kings started 0–4–2 and have gone 5–3–0 since to reach 5–7–2 — and they did Wednesday's damage in the purple Hometown Remix jerseys the club wore for the first time. Kempe's return was the headline. The rout was the story around it.

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