Waking up with the Kings: March 24

The Los Angeles Kings rode a strong special teams performance and a quality start in net from Ben Bishop to a 5-2 win over a personnel-depleted Winnipeg Jets team that iced a young blue line in front of Connor Hellebucyk, who dealt with a mash-up of bodies, pucks and skates in close proximity for much of the game. Los Angeles improved as the game progressed. Patrik Laine’s five-on-three goal came on yet another fluky set of deflections – Bishop seems to be disproportionately affected by those in his tenure as a King – and it’s disappointing that the Kings were beaten after having admirably kept the Jets at bay for much of the two-man advantage. Interestingly, when Anze Kopitar scored off the rush to tie the game earlier in the period, Los Angeles’ power play, for as good as it has been over the last month, hadn’t exactly swung the puck around with precision before equalizing when the captain more or less teleported the puck into the upper reaches of the far corner of the net shortly after an easy zone entry as both teams were changing up lines.

That shot by Kopitar was an absolute beauty, and it did raise the kneejerk response of “well, where the heck has that shot been for so much of the season?” But if we’re talking shooting accuracy, Tanner Pearson still deserves his due credit. The 24-year-old is just 1-for-6 in his career in shootouts, but if there’s any player you want shooting the puck on an angled two-on-one where the defender has to respect the pass, it’s probably Pearson (or, of course, Jeff Carter). He’s shown the ability, like Carter, to fire off accurate shots with zip off the rush, and a 13.1% all-situations shooting percentage on 405 career shots is nothing to scoff at. His goal Thursday didn’t come at even strength, but a case could be made that he has been the team’s best even strength player this season. After Pearson’s 1.18 goals per 60 minutes of 5×5 play, Carter ranks second on the team at 0.91, and then there’s a bigger drop-off to Marian Gaborik at 0.65. It is almost kind of silly referencing this because Pearson’s goal came on a strong individual play while shorthanded to chip the puck past Josh Morrisey to set up the two-on-one, but Pearson was also valuable in backchecking and defensive zone play during the 5-2 win.

Overtime wins are counted equally in the standings as regulation wins, but Thursday night’s victory was the first regulation victory against a conference opponent since the 4-1 win over Anaheim on February 25. Credit needs to go to Nashville, Calgary, Edmonton and St. Louis – all teams that have raised their play over the last month and have done their part to earn their playoff likelihoods – but if there’s a reason that Los Angeles hadn’t been able to keep pace, it’s because they were 1-4-3 in their last eight conference games, with the Predators also picking up a point in the Kings’ lone conference win in that span.