Kings Hang On In Face Of Avalanche

One would think that a 4-0 lead with 10:00 left in the game would be a laugher of a game. But as the game devolved with penalty after penalty being called, the Kings barely skated off the ice with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche.

“We made it interesting at the end getting a little too casual, a little careless with some plays in critical times in the game,” head coach Terry Murray said. “You go into the third period with that kind of scenario you want to make sure you’re able to lock it down - good teams do.”

And this is against an injury-depleted Avs team the Kings have handled recently going 6-0-1 in their last seven meetings.

The Kings had a lot of opportunities to turn the game into a laugher getting two 5-on-3 situations in the second period. However the Kings managed only three shots-on-goal during those 2:26.

“I got to be hitting the net,” defenseman Drew Doughty admitted, although he wasn’t too discouraged.

“I thought our power-play was good overall today.”

Murray echoed that sentiment.

“The 5-on-3 was good,” Murray said. “We were in the offensive zone the whole time. We were moving the puck around. We were getting our shots. Everybody’s doing the right thing.”

But Doughty admitted getting frustrated not having put the Avs away despite controlling the game.

“Obviously we were frustrated with our first couple of opportunities, our first 5-on-3’s not scoring,” Doughty said. “We definitely came out with more urgency on the next power-plays, and they finally went in for us.”

And Doughty was the man to do just this with a second left in the second period to give the Kings the 3-0 lead.

“I just had to take the one-timer and get it on net,” Doughty said. “It wasn’t the perfect shot or anything, but it squeaked through and went in.”

“If you score one out of five on the power-play in the NHL, you’ve got the top power-play in the NHL,” Murray noted.

Anze Kopitar opened the scoring for the game on a put-back from Brad Richardson’s initial shot attempt at 7:13. Doughty initiated the rush in the Kings zone dishing the puck off to Kopitar who then handed it off to Wayne Simmonds who took it behind the Avs net.

Alec Martinez added a goal in the second period with a one-timer from the left point at 9:50, and Jarret Stoll on a 4-on-3 situation also got a one-timer from the left point at 5:47 in the third period to give the Kings the 4-0 lead.

But as mentioned earlier bad plays allowed the Avs to crawl back with David Jones scoring twice in a 39-second span late in the third period: once during a 5-on-3 power-play and once just as a 5-on-4 expired.

Paul Stastny added a goal with 30 seconds left in the game as the Avs pulled their goalie Brian Elliott, but the Avs would get no closer to that.

The Kings recorded a season-high 42 shots-on-goal, and Ryan Smyth recorded his 400th career assist on Doughty’s power-play goal in the second period.