Hockey offers exhibitions of passion, resilience, teamwork, and, occasionally, the reification of a dream in real time.

Quinton Byfield made his NHL debut on Wednesday night. The Kings selected the Newmarket, Ontario native second overall in the 2020 NHL entry draft, the highest a Black player had ever been drafted in league history.

“I can definitely be a top player in the NHL one day. I’ve got the size, speed and natural abilities to do that,” Byfield said in the lead-up to the draft. “That’s the main goal, trying to be one of the top players in the NHL one day and, like everyone else in the league, to bring the Stanley Cup back to your team.”

Byfield, 18, started Wednesday’s 3-2 loss to the Ducks centering the second line and made a smooth pass on his first shift. In the third period, he tested goalie John Gibson with a pair of shots that were prime opportunities, both of which Gibson denied. Byfield finished with a team-high four shots on goal and was effective in the faceoff circle, winning eight of 12.

He saw 17:57 of ice time, including 4:20 on the power play, as Coach Todd McLellan said he was reconciling a desire to take pressure off of Byfield but also offer him an opportunity to take on significant responsibility.

“We don’t want to overload any individual, especially an 18-year-old coming into the league,” McLellan said.”We’re going to use the old cliche of ‘play the game, enjoy the moment, take everything in, don’t be afraid of making mistakes.’”

How much did McLellan trust Byfield? When the Kings allowed a late goal to fall behind 3-2 and had to pull goalie Cal Petersen, McLellan tabbed Byfield as the extra attacker. He even had the final shot attempt of the game during a hectic six-on-five shift.

Byfield has been adjusting to pro hockey at the American Hockey League level and also acclimating himself to his new home in Hermosa Beach, where he is living alone for the first time. When asked about the challenges of relocating to Southern California and the NHL during a pandemic, Byfield said cooking and cleaning were sometimes uncharted territory for him.

Yet on the ice, he’s faced few obstacles he was unable to surmount. As he worked on his game and became more assertive, he turned his minus-15 rating around by finishing with a plus-9 rating and nine points across his last dozen games with Ontario Reign. In prior seasons, 18-year-olds were not even eligible to play in the AHL – players coming from Europe are typically eligible at 19 and North American prospects gain eligibility at 20 – but Byfield adapted swiftly after the OHL canceled its season.

“I’ve just tried to improve a lot over the past couple years, really trying to fine-tune my game and be an every-situation player,” Byfield said. “There are quite a few elements that I still need to improve on, but I think my strong suits right now are my skating, for a big guy, and my vision out there. I usually like to find my teammates out there before I take a shot.”

At 6-foot-4, Byfield has continued to work on his physique and aggressiveness. Known for his mobility, vision and hands, the focus of his development during his time with the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves as well as the Reign has been on assertiveness and play without the puck. Byfield said his defensive game was where he made the most progress both in his final year of junior hockey and his first minor pro season.

“It’s become a little more compact and a little bit more controlled,” Byfield said. “I’m not always just running around the ice and trying to get the puck back for my team, but more just picking up my guy and staying in my spot, being close to the boards for the puck and always being open.”

With nine games left in the Kings’ season, it seems highly unlikely that Byfield will play in all of them. He can play up to seven games before a season comes off his entry-level contract, a situation the Kings seem certain to avoid.

Earlier this season, the Kings brought up another top prospect, winger Arthur Kaliyev, for just one game despite his scoring his first career goal in his debut. He and Byfield developed some chemistry in Ontario, offering a glimpse of a promising future for the Kings.

Byfield also skated on a Reign line with 2020 World Juniors golden goal-scorer Akil Thomas and former Ducks winger Devante Smith-Pelly, forming the first all Black line in pro hockey since the 1940s.

Regardless of how his first handful of games go, Byfield will persist in chiseling himself into the complete package at the sport’s very highest level.

“The grind never stops,” Byfield said. “I just want to keep getting better.”

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Teams make plans and the hockey gods laugh.

A night after they beat the West division’s best team, the Kings stumbled against one of its worst, falling 2-1 to the San Jose Sharks on Monday at SAP Center.

The game saw them earn noticeably more shots on goal, scoring chances and power-play opportunities but still lose, due in large part to two fluky San Jose goals that banked in off Kings players.

“Sometimes it’s not your night yet you put in a pretty good effort,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said.

Reminiscent of a Feb. 27 game against the Minnesota Wild, the Kings saw a number of unusual bounces. Monday, those tough breaks ended up defying the typical barometers of a team’s level of success.

“We’re beyond this game already. We’ll prepare for the next night,” McLellan said.

The Kings had an opportunity to gain ground on fourth-place St. Louis, which lost to the division-leading Vegas Golden Knights on Monday. Instead, they remained five points behind the Blues.

One day after signing a three-year contract extension, defenseman Matt Roy scored his first goal of the season for the Kings, who haven’t won consecutive games since their six-game winning streak ended on Feb. 26. Goalie Jonathan Quick made 21 saves.

Centers Logan Couture and Ryan Donato scored for San Jose. Former Kings goalie Martin Jones was heavily occupied, making 41 saves.

San Jose defenseman Mario Ferraro saved a tying goal as the buzzer loomed when he tied up center Anze Kopitar’s stick at the right post. The Kings struggled with the extra man: they failed to cash in any of their six-on-five opportunities, going 0 for 5 on the power play.

With just more than three minutes left in the game, the Kings buzzed around the San Jose net but a Kopitar shot hit the post and a strong save by Jones on a one-timer preserved San Jose’s edge.

Less than four minutes into the third period, Donato reclaimed the lead for San Jose. He drove wide on the right wing, beating two Kings to the back of the net. He circled looking for a wraparound or a centering pass. He chose the latter option, but his centering attempt caromed in off Quick’s skate anyway.

Donato is the son of former Kings and Ducks forward Ted Donato, who currently coaches Harvard University.

“Positionally we were in the right spots on both of those (San Jose goals),” McLellan said. “It goes off somebody’s skate or leg or chin pad. There’s really nothing we can do about it.”

To start the final frame, the Kings found winger Alex Iafallo alone between the hash marks, only to see him shoot a rolling puck into Jones’ blocker. Winger Andreas Athanasiou then drew a penalty, but their fifth opportunity produced the same result as the previous four.

Apart from a couple of brief stretches, the Kings carried much of the play in the second period.

The Kings found the equalizer with 2:29 left in the second stanza. Center Gabe Vilardi won an offensive zone faceoff cleanly over to right winger Austin Wagner, who moved the puck to Roy for a one-time slap shot that he powered past Jones’ glove for his first goal since Dec. 17, 2019, at Boston.

“There were two areas where we fell short … the power play and faceoffs,” McLellan said. “We could whine about that but yet a faceoff got us our lone goal.”

The Kings had out-shot the Sharks handily and generated numerous rebounds, but mostly fired pucks at the pads of Jones, who has historically been vulnerable high to his glove side. Roy said he lifted the puck in an effort to avoid the San Jose defender attempting to block his shot.

“I was just trying to get it past the guy coming out to block it,” Roy said. “Lucky for us, it went in.”

In the first period, Couture got the Sharks on the board by flashing some pinball skills on the ice 8:22 into the contest. His shot from the left side ricocheted off three Kings – forward Adrian Kempe, Quick and defenseman Kurtis MacDermid – before entering the net.

With approximately 7:30 left in the first period, defenseman Drew Doughty leaned into a one-timer that Jones saved, only to see Doughty draw a high-sticking penalty against winger Timo Meier seconds later.

The Kings did not convert on the power play or the nifty counter-attack that their third line pieced together at even strength.

That was the second of three man-advantage opportunities, none of which the Kings were able to turn into a tally. Feeding that futility were three faceoff losses in the offensive zone to start each power play, part of a broader trend of struggling in the circle for the Kings.

The Kings ended the first period down 1-0, but they did manage a victory in a battle of Kurtises between MacDermid and Sharks winger Kuris Gabriel. It was MacDermid’s third fighting major this season, and the fourth for Gabriel. The Kings have had a fight in four consecutive games.

MacDermid’s spot in the lineup seems firm for now as Olli Maatta (upper-body injury) did not travel to San Jose. The Kings recalled defenseman Austin Strand from the Ontario Reign.

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Instead of being forced to play three games in four days, the Kings got a bit of extra rest. That paid off as they rode a fiery first period to a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night at Staples Center.

The Kings had three injured regulars, one more absence and a bug – not COVID-19, they emphasized – going around their dressing room. But nature intervened when heavy snowfall in Denver stranded the Kings in Colorado, causing their Monday game against St. Louis to be postponed. The Blues, who were 10-2-2 on the road (second in the points and points percentage) before Wednesday, were awaiting the Kings when they returned. The Kings improved to 5-1-1 against St. Louis, which has lost five straight.

“The Colorado trip was hard on us,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “A lot of things happened on that trip with illness, the storm, us not playing very well in Game 1, having to react in Game 2, playing a little bit better but still losing both games, and then spending that extra day didn’t help.”

McLellan praised his leadership group, which organized a brief skate Tuesday despite it being a scheduled day off, and said his team has risen to St. Louis’ level more often than not this season.

Defenseman Drew Doughty, winger Carl Grundstrom and forward Trevor Moore, who also had an assist, scored goals for the Kings. Anze Kopitar had an empty-net goal that traveled the length of the ice and an assist. Forward Jaret Anderson-Dolan, who played his first game since Feb. 18, contributed two assists.

Cal Petersen, who faced nearly 90 shots over two games in Colorado, also got a bit of a breather, facing a more modest total of 20 shots and chipping in with an assist. Jonathan Quick was available to back up Petersen, having recovered from an upper-body injury during the break, while defenseman Olli Maatta exited COVID-19 protocol and skated alongside Sean Walker on Wednesday.

Winger Mike Hoffman tallied for St. Louis. Jordan Binnington started in goal for the Blues, and he allowed three first-period goals that left St. Louis looking up at the Kings all night.

The Kings got going with a power-play goal and a simple recipe: pass, shoot, recover, pass, shoot. With eight players around the net, the Kings dug the puck out of a crowd. Kopitar moved the puck high to an open Doughty, who made no mistake with a shot from between the tops of the faceoff circles.

It was his seventh goal of the season and the Kings’ 26th man-advantage goal in only 28 games. Kopitar’s assist was his 20th power-play point of the season, second-most in the NHL.

A mere 58 seconds later, the Kings’ workman-like line of Moore, Grundstrom and Anderson-Dolan donned their hard hats. A puck that glanced off Grundstrom’s leg and into the corner was centered by his linemates, before he swept it home with a diving effort to end his 14-game goal drought.

“Sometimes things work with combinations of players … they complement each other, they have a tenacity yet a calmness to them that allows them to keep plays alive,” McLellan said, praising the trio’s conditioning on a night when they played more even-strength minutes than any other Kings line.

Their goal prompted a St. Louis timeout just 4:19 into the game.

“Whoever has the best start is usually coming out on top … there was definitely an emphasis from Todd and the coaches to have a quick start,” Anderson-Dolan said.

The timeout settled the Blues to an extent, but it did not prevent a third goal. Again it was the swift, industrious trio converting for the Kings. Anderson-Dolan skated in a hook pattern toward the net before his cross-crease pass banked in off Moore’s skate with 5:49 left in the first period.

Anderson-Dolan now has seven points in as many games this season, and the Kings have won four straight games with him in the lineup.

“I try to focus on what I can control, and that’s how hard you’re working and the details in your game. Tonight the points were there but I didn’t play as well as I wanted to,” Anderson-Dolan said.

There was a frightening instant in the first period when St. Louis defenseman Torey Krug checked Kopitar along the boards. Kopitar’s shoulder struck the glass and his head hit the stanchion. Kopitar did not miss a shift. Krug later fought with winger Andreas Athanasiou in the second period.

The Kings took their first penalty of the game at its midway mark. The Blues had the fifth-ranked power play on the road going into the game and had scored on nine of their previous 22 man-advantage opportunities. But the Kings killed the penalty with aplomb.

It was during a delayed penalty that the Blues got on the board. Hoffman curled toward the blue line and flung the puck through a four-man screen of two Blues and two Kings. Hoffman’s eighth goal of the year with under four minutes to play in the second stanza gave St. Louis some life.

After out-shooting the Blues 9-3 in the first period, the Kings absorbed more of the play in the second. St. Louis had an 11-7 edge in shots and inverted the scoring chances-for percentage from the first period.

The Kings did not allow much of a final push from St. Louis. With 5:30 left, Petersen made an authoritative glove save on defenseman Justin Faulk while fighting hard through a screen by forward David Perron.

The Blues pulled Binnington with 3:45 left to play. But St. Louis was largely limited to perimeter passes and shot attempts.

Kopitar was against the end boards of the defensive zone, but rather than icing the puck he iced the game when his long, high, backhanded flip of the puck ended up in the net for a nearly 200-foot goal with 1:40 left.

PASSING WAYNE

Doughty’s power-play goal was his 64th, passing Wayne Gretzky for ninth place in franchise history. Doughty has played 408 more games for the Kings than The Great One.

POWER PLAY GOAL DREW DOUGHTY #GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/wYfS8Pa6ix

— FOX Sports West (@FoxSportsWest) March 18, 2021

GRUNDSTROM BURIES IT

2-0 @LAKings #GoKingsGo pic.twitter.com/5Sl03V42E9

— FOX Sports West (@FoxSportsWest) March 18, 2021

SCORE BY MOORE

Feeling the luck at Staples #GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/xr19JjCcUm

— FOX Sports West (@FoxSportsWest) March 18, 2021

Hear from Todd McLellan as he wraps up the night at Staples #GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/NNwpURx9G1

— FOX Sports West (@FoxSportsWest) March 18, 2021

WELCOME BACK JAD @JimFox19 catches up with Jaret Anderson-Dolan postgame #GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/Ai8NP6q5ZV

— FOX Sports West (@FoxSportsWest) March 18, 2021

From a distance! pic.twitter.com/FmV7JpIdCR

— LA Kings (@LAKings) March 18, 2021

“I thought our line was feelin’ it tonight”

Trevor Moore chats with the media after tonight’s big win #GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/2m1GJODXtO

— FOX Sports West (@FoxSportsWest) March 18, 2021

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The Kings have had enough of an up-and-down season to give their followers a bout of vertigo. They’ve had a league-best six-game win streak but two slumps that accounted for nine total losses. They have a three-goal comeback victory but three would-be wins squandered in the final minute of regulation. Their one constant has been the power play.

Even as they surrendered five goals through two periods against the Ducks on Monday night, a pair of power-play goals held them in a game in which they were faring poorly at even strength. They rallied to force overtime before losing, 6-5, and now have earned points in 11 of their last 13 games, despite that stretch including a four-game winless stretch and some costly errors.

Their power-play success has been largely unexpected, too, since the Kings finished among the most feeble units in the NHL with the man advantage last season.

Their 17.1 percent conversation rate was the sixth-worst in the league in 2019-20, and that was even after it started to produce more consistently late in the season. In 2021, the Kings are in the top 10 in power-play percentage and rising rapidly. They are in the top five in power-play goals scored, after finishing in a tie for the sixth-least last season.

On the other side of the special teams coin, the Kings have gone from the eighth-worst penalty kill last season to jockeying within or near the top 10 for most of this season.

“We’re making plays. We’re getting good goaltending. Our specialty teams are giving us a boost most nights,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said earlier this season. “Is that surprising? To us no, but maybe to the hockey world a little bit.”

The Kings have scored power-play goals in five consecutive games and have converted a whopping 36.8 percent of their opportunities during that span.

Veterans like winger Dustin Brown, center Anze Kopitar and Drew Doughty have been prolific up a man or more. Brown has seven power-play goals, and only Dallas’ Joe Pavelski had more heading into Monday’s games. Brown’s career-best for a full season is 13, back in 2006-07.

Much like Pavelski, Kopitar is capable of playing any role in any area of the ice on the power play. He can play at the top of the umbrella, at either point, in the bumper position, on the wall, or at the net front, and he has done damage all over the offensive zone.

His 18 power-play points this season rank second in the league, and his exploits in the center of the ice have freed Doughty to roam along the wall more for higher-quality shooting opportunities. Doughty, through 24 games, is one shy of his power-play goal total from last season and has already equaled his man-advantage assist mark from all of last year.

Forward Adrian Kempe has carried his talent for zone entries over to this season and also proven dynamic beyond the blue line. With a power-play goal off a one-timer Monday, which was part of his second career hat trick, Kempe has already equaled his power-play point total and exceeded his power-play goal total from last season.

“I’ve been trying to hit the net a lot more than I did last year. I had some good chances last year, but if you don’t hit the net you don’t get that second opportunity,” Kempe said Monday. “This year I’ve also been working on my one-timer a lot.”

Where last season the Kings struggled to find five solid passers who worked well together consistently on the first unit, this season they have not one but two potent units. The two groups give distinct looks to opponents in terms of both entries and formations.

The most productive player who was consistently on the second unit in 2019-20 was defenseman Sean Walker, who produced five power-play points. This season, winger Alex Iafallo already has five, winger Jeff Carter has four, center Gabe Vilardi has three and center Jaret Anderson-Dolan has looked dangerous in limited opportunities as well.

That has been key, especially early in the season when penalties were up league-wide. Not only has a more efficient power play helped the Kings on the scoreboard, but it also prevented a lackluster group from draining momentum and weighing the team down five-on-five as it did at times last season.

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