Postgame notes (March 24)

Some notes from last night’s game…

— The Kings kept pace with their closest Western Conference competitors as they beat San Jose 4-3 in a shootout on Thursday night at Staples Center.

— With one game remaining, the Kings lead the season series against the Sharks 3-2, although each team has claimed six points in the series because of two Kings shootout victories. The Kings went 2-1 against San Jose at home, the first time since 2002-03 that the Kings beat the Sharks twice at home.

— The Kings have a 42-26-6 record, the exact same record they had after 74 games last season. After their 74th game last season, the Kings were in seventh place in the West, seven points ahead of ninth-place Calgary. Now they’re in fifth place, four points ahead of ninth-place Dallas.

— The Kings outshot the Sharks 38-28, including 14-4 in the second period.

— The Kings went 2-for-5 on the power play and 2-for-3 on the penalty kill. The Kings had their streak of 35 consecutive successful penalty kills ended early in the second period, but also scored two power-play goals in a game for the first time since Feb. 26, a span of 12 games.

— The Kings improved to 22-12-3 at home, 10-16-4 when allowing the first goal, 24-0-1 when leading after the second period, 9-2 in shootouts and 21-8-6 in one-goal games.

— Jonathan Quick stopped 25 of 28 shots in overtime and regulation, and improved to 9-0 in shootouts this season as he stopped four of five San Jose attempts. Quick has stopped 34 of 41 shootout attempts this season (82.9 percent) and has a career shootout record of 21-7.

— Dustin Brown had two power-play goals in regulation, then scored the shootout-deciding goal in the fifth round. Brown is now tied with Anze Kopitar for the team lead with 25 goals, and has four goals in his last five games. It was Brown’s fifth two-goal game of the season, his 16th multi-point game of the season and the first time this season he has scored two power-play goals in a game.

— Willie Mitchell scored a second-period goal, and matched his career-high with his fourth goal of the season. Mitchell also had four goals for Vancouver last season.

— Alec Martinez had two power-play assists. It was Martinez’s second multi-point game of the season, his first multi-assist game of the season and the first time this season that he recorded multiple power-play points.

— Alexei Ponikarovsky had one assist, on the power play. Ponikarovsky has five assists in his last six games.

— Michal Handzus had one assist, on the power play. Handzus has two assists in his last three games.

— Oscar Moller had one assist, in his first game with the Kings after being called up on Wednesday. Moller has one goal and three assists in five games with the Kings this season.

— Ryan Smyth had one assist, his 22nd assist of the season.

— Jarret Stoll scored in the second round of the shootout. Stoll is 8-for-9 in shootout attempts this season.

— Dustin Brown and Oscar Moller each recorded a game-high five shots on goal. Brown and Matt Greene each were credited with a game-high six hits. Rob Scuderi was credited with a team-high two blocked shots.

— Drew Doughty played a game-high 30 minutes, 5 seconds, the second time this season he has topped the 30-minute mark. (Doughty played a season-high 30:41 on Dec. 4 against Detroit.) Anze Kopitar led all forwards in ice time at 24:04.

— The Kings won 36 of 64 faceoffs (56 percent). Michal Handzus won 11 of 18 draws (61 percent) and Jarret Stoll won 9 of 15 draws (60 percent).