NHL Thursday night Match Analysis: Los Angeles Kings vs. Columbus Blue Jackets 2-1
Columbus was on its way to grab its second straight win of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season after defeating the Vancouver Canucks, 2-1, in a shootout, but was disappointed after Los Angeles Kings rallied in the third to overtake the Blue Jackets, 2-1, on Thursday night, December 15, 2011, at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio, United States.
For interim coach, John Stevens, who was the assistant to head coach, Terry Murray, before he was fired a few days earlier due to Los Angeles Kings’ disappointing performance in the season so far, losing in his first match in the position by a 3-0 shutout against Boston. The loss was obviously embarrassing, but bouncing back against Columbus gave LA some ray of hope.
"The status doesn't change; it still feels like a win," said Stevens. "It was just a big win for our team considering this slide we've been on here. The guys played extremely hard tonight."
Los Angeles is still certainly not where it would want to be, standing at the 10th spot in the Western Conference with 32 points and a 14-13-4 record, in the season so far. It still has to improve significantly, if it wants to overtake some of the top ranking teams who will not go down easily without a fight.
"It's a great feeling when you break a losing streak," LA's centre, Anze Kopitar, said. "It wasn't pretty but the effort was definitely there. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how. We got the two points."
Columbus failed to capitalise on two straight Los Angeles penalties during the opening period when Simon Gagne was booked in the first six seconds for hooking and Jarret Stoll was sent to the benches for boarding with a minor.
The Blue Jackets had three power play chances throughout the 60 minute contest but failed to counter on any single one which could have easily landed them the crucial two points they need to work themselves out of the 15th number spot in the West by having only 22 points.
Former Philadelphia Flyers rowdy forward, Jeff Carter, added his seventh goal of the season with less than four minutes remaining off an assist by Vaclav Prospal and Nikita Nikitin, giving the home team something to work on and defend entering the final period.
Carter got the help of a bouncer which then deflected off of the Los Angeles defenseman and popped into the Kings net behind Jonathan Quick.
Los Angeles was determined to take the win during the last period as Davis Drewiske inaugurated his scoring with a quick slap shot from Columbus goalie Curtis Sanford’s left side while Dustin Brown made the one timer nearly four minutes later to take the lead for Kings from nearly midpoint on the ice.
"We haven't heard that game-winning song in a long time," Leading Los Angeles defenseman, Drew Doughty, said. "So to finally hear that, it's definitely a great time.”
Being one of the top teams last season despite having an unhealthy line-up, the Los Angeles Kings are now fit in terms of their roster, which shows they have a lot of catching up to do in the upcoming days if they want to get anywhere further than last season, this time around.
LA has the next against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, while the struggling Blue Jackets host the Tampa Bay Lightning the same day.
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