Montreal Canadiens give Los Angeles Kings a royal thrashing with a 4-1 win
The Los Angeles Kings are currently the youngest team in the National Hockey League, and they are loaded with bright, offensive talent. They have dazzled many opponent with their array
of skills. However, the Kings’ attempts at storming the Montreal Canadiens’ castle were thwarted when the Habs handed them a 4-1 loss on Wednesday 24 November.
How it happened
The home team got the game off to an exciting start when Andrei Kostitsyn netted a power play goal at 9:59 of the first period. Mike Cammalleri got his seventh goal of the season at 17:37
after his shot went off the Kings’ Drew Doughty and into the net.
Down by a score of 2-0 at the end of the first period, the Kings got on the board at 1:57 of the second period. Minor-league call-up Alec Martinez got his first career NHL goal to make
it a 2-1 game. Tomas Plekanec extended the Canadiens’ lead when he scored his eighth of the season at 3:16. Lars Eller, who was acquired in the Jaroslav Halak trade, put the game out of reach for the visitors when he notched his first goal as a Hab at 18:07.
The second-period goals and many amazing saves from goaltender Carey Price were all Montreal needed to earn their 14th win of the 2010-11 campaign, as no further goals were scored in the
third period.
What they’re saying
It took Lars Eller 20 games to get his first goal in a Canadiens’ uniform, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Eller’s goal had the entire team on its feet, and the fans even voted
him as the second star of the game.
“Hopefully it doesn’t take me 20 games to score another one,” Eller told reporters after the game. “When the crowd supports you like that, you don’t get a much better feeling than that.
I’ve never had 22,000 people yelling when I’ve scored before.”
“I think you saw the whole bench get a lift and jump,” Cammalleri said of Eller’s goal. “He’s one of your teammates, when you’re competing with each other every day you build intimate
relationships and you feel each other’s happiness and you feel each other’s pain. So for Lars to get the first one, we were all happy for him, and he let the hockey gods know it by looking up.”
While the Habs were celebrating after the game, it was an entirely different story in the Kings’ dressing room. Defenceman Rob Scuderi said that the 4-1 loss was one of the team’s worst
performances thus far.
“That was probably the worst we’ve played in the last four or five games,” Scuderi said.
Left-winger Ryan Smyth was also unhappy with the result of the game.
“The outcome was unacceptable,” Smyth said. “Give them (the Canadiens) credit, they played hard from start to finish. But we have to play hard for 60 minutes.”
The Canadiens will play their next game against the Atlanta Thrashers on Friday 26 November, while the Kings will host the Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday 27 November.
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