Los Angeles Kings defeat Calgary Flames 2-1 for third Straight Win
Kyle Clifford scored his first National Hockey League (NHL) goal, while Jonathan Quick made 26 saves as the Los Angeles Kings held on for a 2-1 victory over the Calgary Flames, to extend
their winning streak to three games on Thursday night.
Anze Kopitar also scored a power-play goal for the Kings, who have earned just their second win in the last 10 meetings with Flames.
"For whatever reason they were just tough to play against," said Kopitar, "but tonight I thought we gave a great effort for 60 minutes and we got the job done."
Olli Jokinen scored the only Calgary goal on a power play, while Miikka Kiprusoff stopped 30 shots for the struggling Flames, who have alternated wins and losses in the past nine games.
Calgary hasn’t won two games in a row since late October.
“I thought our defencemen were under siege a lot, and I didn’t think our forwards had a good game,” Calgary coach Brent Sutter said. “We weren’t strong on our fore-check, and we allowed
them to fore-check hard on us. We have to regroup and get going again. It sounds like a broken record, but that’s the only way we can do it.”
Flames had won 14 of 17 meetings with the Los Angeles, including a 3-1 home victory in October. The Kings won 11 of their next 13 games, moving to the top of the NHL standings before losing
their grip.
During a sometimes shaky opening period after their return from a four-day break, Clifford gave the Kings a 1-0 lead when he tipped in a pass by Wayne Simmonds.
“It was an ugly goal, but it’s good to get the first one off my back,” said Clifford, who made the Kings’ roster out of training camp but didn’t score until his 22nd game.
Kiprusoff had little chance to stop the goal, but he did make 11 saves in the second period. Quick had four stops in the stanza.
After a scoreless second period, Kopitar scored on a power play five minutes into the third period to make it 2-0 to the Kings. The goal followed defenceman Jack Johnson's slap shot from
the blue line, which left a loose puck in front, and an open net for Kopitar to score.
Jokinen broke up Quick’s shutout bid on a power-play goal with three minutes remaining in the game, also ending Kings’ streak of 45 straight penalty-kills at home from the start of the
season.
After 12 consecutive home games of perfect penalty-killing, the Kings fell just short of becoming the first team to avoid allowing a power-play goal in 13 straight home games since the
Colorado Avalanche did it in 2001-02.
“It wasn’t everything, but we certainly were aware of it,” Kings defenceman Rob Scuderi said. “We wanted to keep it going.”
In the closing moments, the Jokinen capitalized on a loose puck near the goal line after Anton Babchuk's shot from the point got behind Quick, but the Flames were unable to find the equaliser.
Flames head coach Brent Sutter was unhappy with his team's play, particularly their lack of "push back" in the second period when the Los Angeles still only led by a goal.
"We had urgency in our game the last seven minutes after we were down a couple," Sutter said.
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