The Kings pulled within one goal 1:55 into the second period. Wayne Simmonds forced the puck away from Jonathan Ericsson. Anze Kopitar picked it up and shot, and Howard made the save, but with the puck loose in front, Brad Richardson jabbed at it and popped it into the air, over Howard’s head. As the [...]

The Kings had a flurry at the end of the period, and outshot the Wings 12-11 in the period, but put nothing on the scoreboard. The Wings’ second goal is now credited to Todd Bertuzzi, who deflected Brian Rafalski’s shot.

The Red Wings scored just 13 seconds into a two-man advantage, just over two minutes after their first goal. Brian Rafalski’s shot from the high slot got deflected by Todd Bertuzzi past Quick at the 7:31 mark.

Detroit took the lead at the 5:29 mark of the first period. Valtteri Filppula took a pass from Dan Cleary, skated into the slot and around Oscar Moller, and then held the puck until Quick committed. Filppula shot high and scored.

Need to catch up on today’s news and notes? Please check out my notebook on LAKings.com from today. Kings notebook (Jan. 23) If you’re near Burbank, or the general area, there’s a Kings watch party at Barney’s Beanery starting at 4 p.m., with the Kings Ice Crew in attendance. I’ve lived in Southern California my [...]

Brad Richardson, essentially a borderline fourth-line player at the start of the season, is now the Kings’ first-line left winger, on a line with Anze Kopitar and wayne Simmonds. Richardson is actually the veteran on that line, at age 24 and with 216 NHL games. Richardson’s promotion is less about having high-end offensive ability — [...]

Peter Harrold will play his fifth consecutive game as a defenseman tonight, as Randy Jones will again be a healthy scratch. It remains to be seen what will happen when Davis Drewiske returns from his shoulder injury — possibly as soon as one week from today — but for now, Harrold has earned the satisfaction [...]

After this morning’s skate, Terry Murray said he would go with the same lineup he used toward the end of the game against Buffalo. That means Raitis Ivanans and Randy Jones will be the healthy scratches and the Kings should start the game as follows… Richardson-Kopitar-Simmonds Smyth-Stoll-Brown Frolov-Handzus-Purcell Parse-Moller-Segal Scuderi-Doughty Johnson-Harrold O’Donnell-Greene Quick

The Lombardi-Michigan-Johnson story got fresh legs today when Johnson, after the morning skate, was met by a small pack of reporters. To refresh, Lombardi, in a recent interview, had harsh criticism for the University of Michigan hockey program and used it in describing Johnson’s progress as an NHL player. Johnson took strong exception to the [...]

There’s a vague, unsourced report on a Russian website that Alexander Frolov and three other NHL players have been added to Russia’s Olympic roster as “substitutes.” Frolov said he didn’t know anything about it, and that he hadn’t received any team equipment, as had been posted on the website.

Saturday’s game will be the third of four meetings between the Kings and Wings this season, and the initial two were quite different. In the first game, Oct. 15 at Detroit, the Kings led 1-0 after a strong first period but gave up a goal less than four minutes into the second period and never [...]

The Kings came out with new, surprising forward lines Thursday night, and stayed with them for most of the game. Terry Murray wouldn’t commit to using the same lines tomorrow against Detroit, but today he gave a breakdown of how he thought the top three lines peformed against Buffalo… (on the Richardson-Kopitar-Simmonds line…) MURRAY: “The [...]

After his nine-game absence, Teddy Purcell returned to the Kings’ lineup Thursday, played 11 minutes, 29 seconds, and had two shots on goal. Purcell started out on the fourth line but moved up to the third line later in the game, in place of Scott Parse. I asked Terry Murray today whether Purcell would stay [...]

Coincidences can be funny sometimes. On Jan. 1, Jonathan Quick got named to the U.S. Olympic hockey team as one of its three goals, along with Buffalo’s Ryan Miller and Boston’s Tim Thomas. Within the next three weeks, Quick stood at the opposite end of the ice from both Miller and Thomas, and beat them [...]

No Kings practice today. Instead, a morning flight to Detroit, for the start of the five-game road trip. It begins, appropriately, with a game against Detroit, a game that features the current No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the Western Conference. Here’s what Sean O’Donnell said about the start of the trip… O’DONNELL: “That’s [...]

As you probably read, Ryan Smyth on Wednesday participated in the Olympic torch relay in his hometown of Banff, Alberta, then came back to Los Angeles on Thursday and scored the game-tying goal in the third period. In between? A long day. Smyth had intended to fly back to L.A. on Wednesday night, but got [...]

One for the night owls… Quite a wild exchange on two blogs that aren’t mine, but I’ll do my best to recap and link. First, there was part of an extensive interview Gann Matsuda — who writes for Hockeywood, L.A., and his own blog — did with Dean Lombardi, in which Lombardi had heavy criticism [...]

Here’s my game story from tonight, with stats and video. Thanks for reading! Kings beat Sabres 4-3 in shootout

Terry Murray’s postgame thoughts… (on the win…) MURRAY: “It was a good game. It was fun to play in; I’m sure it was. It was fun to coach, because both teams are skating, competing. Buffalo is a good hockey club. You know, they’ve got a bunch of guys that have been there for 10 years [...]

Dustin Brown’s postgame thoughts… (on the win…) BROWN: “Tonight was a much better effort, for a result. I think we played a pretty good game. We had to battle from behind, but I think we played, not only hard, but played with our heads. We played within our system, and when we do that we [...]