LOS ANGELES — Jim Hiller offered up a revelation as the Los Angeles Kings came back to work following a three-day break from their troubles.

“I received a really nice pillow, if you can believe that,” the Kings’ head coach said, answering a light-hearted question about his favorite Christmas gift. “It helped me sleep a little better. A few more goals would probably have done the trick. We had to resort to the pillow.”

A pillow. OK. Truth be told, this doesn’t register on the revelatory scale. But for an increasingly embattled bench boss who’s had more than a few sleepless nights as his underachieving Kings have scuffled offensively all season and failed to generate any lasting momentum, a pillow to use during this short in-season getaway from the rink might have been exactly what he needed.

The real present for the Kings came Saturday in the form of the defenseless Anaheim Ducks. Playing a local rival that’s been mostly getting plaudits for its rise out of the NHL depths should motivate a flagging club. That opponent handing out grade-A scoring chances as if they’re wrapped up with the finest of bows should be exactly what a needy, offensively starved group feasts on.

The Kings did, cashing in four of the multitude of golden looks they had in the opening 20 minutes on the way to a rousing, feel-good, 6-1 drubbing of the Ducks. The NHL’s 26th-ranked offense, limited to two or fewer goals 20 times in 36 pre-break games, erupted, tying a season-high total and giving Hiller his wish. Before Saturday, the Kings had scored two or fewer in seven straight. Not surprisingly, they went 1-4-2.

But it all changed for a night, from the moment the slumping Quinton Byfield fed Drew Doughty for a successful odd-man rush and then Trevor Moore easily gained inside position to redirect a Brian Dumoulin pass toward the net in the four minutes. Alex Laferriere got one when he one-timed a pass from Adrian Kempe, and Byfield, who snapped long goal and point droughts, got a piece of a Brandt Clarke shot on the power play.

DREWWWWW GOT THINGS STARTED pic.twitter.com/DPrpo9wFYt

— LA Kings (@LAKings) December 28, 2025

The Kings needed this after stumbling into the break at a particularly low point, with home losses on back-to-back nights to the Columbus Blue Jackets and Seattle Kraken. To the question of whether they felt joy or relief after the first-period explosion, Kings captain Anže Kopitar took a deep breath and said, “Both, really.”

“I think last game against Seattle, we had some good chances,” Kopitar said. “We just didn’t score. Sometimes you get to — when we were on that extended streak of not being able to put the puck in the net, you get thinking and you get discouraged a little bit. So, to see a few go in early tonight, especially after a break, it’s obviously a good thing and hopefully we can continue building on that.”