The Kings went up 1-0 at 5:35 of the first period when Phillip Danault scored on a one-timer from the right circle set up by Quinton Byfield just after a power play expired.
Kempe made it 2-0 at 15:13 on a one-timer in the slot off Kopitar’s pass from the trapezoid between three San Jose penalty killers.
It was Kempe’s 30th goal in 73 games, reaching the 30-goal mark for the third time in his NHL career and third instance in the past four seasons. He is the 12th Kings player with at least three 30-goal seasons.
“You start putting seasons like that together in a row, you start to become one of the elite goal scorers in the League,” Los Angeles coach Jim Hiller said.
Lund shot the rebound of Mario Ferraro’s long shot into an open net after a kick save by Rittich at 4:52 of the second period to cut it to 2-1. It was Lund’s second NHL goal and point in three career games.
Trevor Moore pushed the lead back to 3-1 at 6:57 with a wrist shot from just outside the crease off Kopitar’s between the legs backhand pass out of the corner.
“It’s a defensive breakdown that we specifically talked about this morning, which, I think, is frustrating about that,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “I think a little bit of it is our D-core has changed quite a bit, so there’s some miscommunication with some areas of our game because our team has changed a lot. And that’s something that I got to do a better job of, getting our guys on the same page and how we need to be more connected in all three zones.”
Foegele made it 4-1 at 13:31, putting in Brandt Clarke’s rebound after his screen prevented Romanov from catching the shot from the blue line cleanly on the power play. It was Foegele’s first special teams goal of the season.
Foegele got his second goal at 19:03 by redirecting Mikey Anderson’s shot to make it 5-1, and Kempe got his second 35 seconds later on a one-timer from Vladislav Gavrikov for the 6-1 lead.
