Final period blitz leads Kings to 4-0 win over San Jose Sharks
Jonathan Quick turned aside 24 shots for his fourth shutout of the season, leading the Los Angeles Kings to a 4-0 win over the San Jose Sharks at the HP Pavilion on Monday night.
Kings centre Brad Richardson said, “We had a lot of great chances in the first and second but nothing was going in. We stuck with it and that’s always a good thing. Sometimes it can go the
other way, you get a lot of chances and they end up scoring. But Quicky was great. We got that first one and kind of went from there.”
Dustin Brown scored twice for Los Angeles, who have won four straight games. Trevor Lewis broke up a scoreless game early in the
third, while former Sharks forward Marco Sturm also lit the lamp. It was Sturm's first goal in a Los Angeles uniform. Antti Niemi made 33 saves of 37 shots for the Sharks, who had a
four-game winning streak snapped. Niemi was dominant over the first two frames. He stopped 16 shots in the first and 14 in the second. Jonathan Quick made 14 saves through two periods.
After being held scoreless on 30 shots over the first two periods, the Kings finally beat Niemi four times in the third stanza. Los
Angeles took a 1-0 lead on their first shot of the final period. Brad Richardson won the puck at the bottom of the left circle, skated towards the net and passed to Lewis, who roofed
it over Niemi. Seventy-one seconds later, Sturm’s wrister from the top of the left circle beat Niemi to make it 2-0. At
the seven minute mark, the lead grew to three goals when Brown added a rebound goal.
Brown said after the game, “We were peppering him (Niemi) all night. He was making some big saves through traffic. When you get that many shots and you’re testing a goalie that often, when
we got that first goal, maybe it broke his will a little bit.” With two minutes left in the game, a nifty play resulted in Brown's second goal of the night. Anze Kopitar, who had three
assists, flipped the puck high in the air over a Sharks defender. Brown outraced Dany Heatley to the puck, and his backhander beat Niemi to put the game away.
Los Angeles Coach Terry Murray said, “I’ve only seen that play connect one time before ever. It was a pretty creative move. Actually, just to relieve some pressure it’s the right kind of look
to make, to get it over the top, the old moon shot, and then you just hope that maybe something happens off of it.”
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