Macklin Celebrini and Ivar Stenberg each scored on the power play for the Sharks (7-9-1), who have lost three straight and five of six. Yaroslav Askarov made 20 saves.
San Jose held a players-only meeting following the defeat, having been outscored 24-11 over the past six games.
“We’re just a little off, you know,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “So I think there’s some things that, believe it or not, were some positives, you know, and we’ll work from that. But, yeah, there’s still some things we got to get cleaned up.”
Kempe made an immediate impact in his return by scoring 1:23 into the game on a wrist shot from the slot on a breakaway that beat Askarov to his left stick side. He then buried a one-timer in the right circle off Erik Gustafsson’s pass to put Los Angeles up 2-0 at 16:09.
“Pucks just went in, I think,” Kempe said. “Another game, a lot of chances, and tonight they went in early and then often, so that was nice.”
Byfield made it 3-0 on a power play at 18:38, waiting in the slot for a one-timer off Panarin’s pass. Kempe had the secondary assist as the Kings scored with the man-advantage for the third straight game.
“I don’t know if we played that bad,” Celebrini said of the first period. “Made a couple mistakes and it cost us, and especially playing a team against like them. They have some skill, so they made us pay.”
The Sharks cut it to 3-1 on Celebrini’s sixth goal of the season at 5:07 of the second period. Celebrini beat Kuemper with a wrist shot from the high slot through traffic on a power play.
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