Los Angeles Kings get big win over Hamburg Freezers 5-4 to end preseason -NHL Update
Los Angeles Kings proved that good teamwork and communication between players can win matches easily as they blanked Hamburg Freezers, 5-4, at the O2 World Arena in Hamburg, Germany, for their final game of the 2011 National Hockey League (NHL) preseason
on Tuesday, October 4, 2011.
Newly re-signed defenseman, Drew Doughty, who has become one of the league’s highest paid players by recently agreeing to a long term, multi-million dollar contract, made his debut at last in the game and showed a strong presence which had LA keep their
heads high.
"I'm ready to go", Doughty said after playing his first game since last season. "I can't wait for the start of the season. That is the game we all look forward to since the start of the summer”.
Justin Williams, recently acquired from Philadelphia Flyers, scored his second goal of the preseason on an assist from star forward, Anze Kopitar, 36 seconds into the matchup to put LA ahead by one.
Hamburg Freezers did not stay behind for long as Serge Aubin fired off during their only power play opportunity of the period with Scott Parse out for slashing and levelling the match at the 12:51 mark.
Alec Martinez scored on a narrow pass from Mike Richards less than a minute later followed by another Freezers goal by Kevin Schmidt to end the initial period, 2-2.
The second period heated up even further as Serge Aubin scored again, putting Hamburg ahead by making the tie-breaker a little over midway through the second.
Los Angeles could not resist scoring as Anze Kopitar added his fifth of the preseason followed by Brad Richardson for the extension with 14 seconds remaining.
Ethan Moreau finalised the match at 3:50 into the third as Brendan Brooks was the only Hamburg player to score, bringing the score within reach to, 5-4, but with only 29 seconds remaining, there was barely any hope left for Freezers.
"We have had a pretty long preseason and a pretty heavy workload here for the past three weeks", said Los Angeles Kings forward, Dustin Brown. "It's been too long. Guys want to play in a real game. Preseason is exactly that -- preseason. Now we are ready
to jack up the intensity and play a real game where every little detail counts".
Los Angeles will now be travelling to Stockholm, Sweden, to kick off the 2011-2012 NHL regular season against New York Rangers on Friday, October 7.
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