The Los Angeles Kings and New York Islanders played a terrific hockey game on Thursday night that was, well, was it the best game of the season? There were enthralling comeback home wins over St. Louis and Chicago, there was near 60-minute dominance in road wins over Vancouver and the New York Rangers, and there were a variety of other wins over top teams, home and away, but when considering the stakes of last night’s game, the narrow margin, the wild momentum swings (I’m looking at you, second period), and five players producing a beautiful goal practically by sheer will and dominant zone time late in the third period on the road against a playoff team, last night’s game continued the team’s elevated play against New Jersey and New York and provided a springboard for the final seven Western Conference games of the season. And while Andrej Sekera and Anze Kopitar connected on a world class slap-pass redirection, the entire shift that led up to the game-winner was worthy of an opera in its honor. OK, maybe an operetta. After Johnny Boychuk’s game-tying third period goal, Los Angeles continued its attack with prime opportunities by both Tyler Toffoli and Marian Gaborik, and, like the first period, generated the surplus of chances down the stretch.
Both goaltenders were very good, and while Jaroslav Halak kept the Kings off the scoreboard by stifling a bevy of quality chances in the first period – Dustin Brown’s attempt from between the circles, and Anze Kopitar’s redirection of Jake Muzzin’s pass and two-on-one snapper were among Los Angeles’ 14 first period shots – Jonathan Quick made two timely second period saves to help build the base of the win. The first, a diving glove stop on Anders Lee’s point blank attempt after a turnover below the goal line, kept the game scoreless. The second came on Nick Leddy’s contested breakaway immediately after the defenseman exited the penalty box and was a stride ahead of a closing Jake Muzzin and kept the Kings’ deficit at one goal. Leddy’s exit ended a five-on-three power play in which the Kings offered too much of a laidback approach in which it appeared as though they were trying to replicate Marian Gaborik’s cross-crease feed to Tyler Toffoli in a reprise of the play that set up a first period goal against New Jersey on Monday. Perhaps the shooting lanes weren’t there at ice level, but Los Angeles generated only two shots on goal during the 1:34 of five-on-three time.
The Kings were successful in getting bodies and pucks to the net and to high tension areas, and while the entire team etched out a commendable performance – “I thought it was a really solid game right through,” Darryl Sutter said – the Kings’ top forward emerged, again, as its top player. Nick Shore scored his first goal as part of an eight-of-nine faceoff performance, and Andrej Sekera has settled in quite well while absorbing some of Drew Doughty’s minutes, but Anze Kopitar continued his best stretch of play of the season and now has points in five straight games, eight points total, as his puck protection has continued to raise his line’s presence in the offensive zone. “I thought the line was really good,” Sutter said. “Other than parts of the second period, I thought they were really good.” Kopitar was very much deserving of the game’s first star.
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