NHL Update: St. Louis Blues defeat Los Angeles Kings, 2-1
Erik Johnson lit the lamp in the final period, as St. Louis Blues crushed Los Angeles Kings, 2-1, at the Scottrade Center on Tuesday night.
Patrik Berglund also scored a goal for Blues, who recovered from a 4-2 drop against on Saturday and have won two of three games after losing five in a row. Jaroslav Halak was strong, turning
aside 26-of-27 shots in the win and raised his career mark to 7-1.
Kyle Clifford tallied the lone goal for Los Angeles, which has dropped two straight contests and nine of 11 games overall. Jonathan Quick stopped 24 shots, but failed to block Johnson's innocent
looking point shot.
"I tried to smother it and it got through me," Quick said. "A bad goal at the end of the game cost us."
Los Angeles coach Terry Murray concurred, calling it "a play that you've got to have 100 percent of the time."
Berglund opened the scoring for Blues with his ninth goal of the season in 12th minute of the first period. The play was set up by Matt D'Agostini, who gave a perfect pass to Berglund
on 5-on-3 advantage. Berglund then redirected the puck past Kings’ netminder for 1-0 lead and his first goal in 11 games.
Los Angeles did not take long to knot the game at 1-1. It happened so when Matt Greene fired a point shot toward the net, but it was saved. Clifford gathered the rebound and tapped it home
through the traffic for his first goal of the season.
It stayed deadlocked in a tight defensive battle until Johnson's goal in the last session.
Alex Steen slipped a pass to Johnson, who flipped a soft wrist shot to the net from just above the right circle. The shot went under the arm of Quick and trickled into the net for the go-ahead
tally and sealed the win at 2-1.
It was Johnson’s fifth goal of the season and he has netted in two consecutive play-offs and has a point in the last four games.
"It's not going to take anything pretty, I just threw it at the net," said Johnson of his goal.
Kings got a power-play opportunity when Vladimir Sobotka was called for tripping after 18 seconds, but Los Angeles failed to take advantage. Then, skating with the goalie pulled for an extra
attacker late in the third period. Blues never gave a decent scoring opportunity and held on for the win.
Tags: