By Dennis J. Freeman
Los Angeles-The Los Angeles Kings and Calgary Flames couldn’t settle their fifth meeting of the season until both teams engaged in a shootout after coming up empty in regulation and overtime.
The Kings prevailed when Anze Kopitar dipped and swiveled his hips just enough for Calgary goalie Miikka Kiprusoff to buy into the fake, and fire the puck into the net for the game-winning goal, giving Los Angeles a 2-1 victory at Staples Center.
“I’ve done it before,” said Kopitar. “Going in there, I was looking and he covered up pretty good. But I figured I’d make him move and the five-hole opened up, so I put it in there.”
In a game that had the intensity of a playoff game, both team struggled in the scoring department. Neither team scored a goal until the waning moments of the third and final period. But they had their opportunities.
The Kings didn’t score until 14:08 of the third period when Jarret Stoll fired in a rebound off an assist by Wayne Simmonds and Brad Richardson.
With the way the game being played out, Stoll’s goal appeared to be just enough for the Kings to walk away with the win in regulation. But while the Kings’ fans were celebrating Stoll’s goal as if it were the game-winner, Calgary took less than two minutes to come back and even the score. Calgary’s Olli Jokinen’s conversion knotted the game at 1-1.
“Maybe, we got caught sleeping a little bit, Kopitar said. “But to finish it off with a win is a good thing and that’s what you want.”
Overtime produced more of the same play from both teams-scrapping and fighting for every inch of possession on the ice-but resulting in no goals being scored. The real fun came during the shootout.
After Michal Handzus was turned away by Kiprusoff in the first set, Stoll scored in the second. Kopitar fired in the game-winner after Kings’ goalie jonathan Quick denied Calgary’s Curtis Glencross.
“That was a good hockey game,” said Kings coach Terry Murray. “That was 20 guys out there, 40 guys out there that put a heck of a performance on. That was intense, very-much playoff-like. Jonathan Quick made some very big stops on their power plays early in the first period…It was a fun game to play, fun game to coach.”
Quick said the win would be a plus for the team going forward as the postseason nears.
“It’s going to go a long ways in preparing us for the playoffs,” Quick said. “If we don’t have what it takes to win at this point, we’re not going to have what it takes to win after the regular season.”
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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