So this was the Kings‘ strategy: to torture themselves and their increasingly queasy fans through 60 painfully low-scoring games and then reinvent themselves as a productive team that appears to be peaking at the right time.
With the West playoff race grinding along in lock-step, now is the time to get hot. The Kings, newly balanced offensively after the arrival of Jeff Carter and benefiting from the vigor of rookies Slava Voynov, Jordan Nolan and Dwight King, continued their revival Tuesday with a 5-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks at Staples Center. That extended their winning streak to a season-best five games and moved them into the eighth conference playoff spot.
This is the team they were projected to be but couldn’t become until the last few weeks: fast, physical, opportunistic and still solid defensively.
“We’re definitely showing signs. There’s always room for improvement, but tonight was a huge game,” said Anze Kopitar, who shared high-scoring honors with Mike Richards with a goal and two assists each. “We knew what was at stake and we came up big. It was a full team effort. And that’s what we’ve got to do down the road.”
Better late than never.
“It would have been better in January,” coach Darryl Sutter said before the game, and he was being mostly serious.
Coaches will always find something to pick on, but there was little to find fault with in the Kings’ triumph Tuesday.
Their best players were their finest, their special teams were key factors and they won for the eighth time in 10 games. They’re 2-1-1 against the Sharks and will face them again April 5 and in the season finale April 7 at San Jose.
Dustin Penner chipped in with an insurance goal at 15:54 of the third period after the Sharks had pulled within one and Carter scored into an empty net to increase the Kings’ offensive output to 37 goals in their last 10 games, an eye-popping total for a team that barely produced two goals per game most of this season.
“We’re better prepared. Having better starts. Working harder. Starting to find some chemistry with a couple young guys up front who do a really good job for us,” said defenseman Willie Mitchell, who took a high stick in the mouth from San Jose’s Torrey Mitchell and got the Kings a four-minute power play early in the third period. That led to Kopitar’s four-on-three goal, at the four-minute mark.
Willie Mitchell praised Nolan and King for winning puck battles and “getting the puck in the hands of guys who are good with it. That’s what you need, right? You need the puck to score goals, and we’re having guys win battles and hold onto pucks and do a much better job of that.”
So now they figure out that you need the puck to score goals.
But now that they have, they’re making it a habit. “I don’t know if we want to break out the last 15 games of the year but maybe next year we’ll do it a little quicker,” Kopitar said.
Richards scored the game’s first goal, while the Kings were short-handed, using defenseman Dan Boyle as a screen to whip a shot past Antti Niemi at 15:26 of the first period.
San Jose responded 22 seconds later when Martin Havlat recaptured his own blocked shot and scored on Jonathan Quick from about 25 feet.
Alec Martinez‘s second goal in three games gave the Kings a 2-1 lead at 15:49 of the second period. After Justin Williams was upended in the corner, Kopitar controlled the puck behind the net and slid a backhand pass to a pinching Martinez, who one-timed it past Niemi.
Kopitar took advantage of a four-on-three manpower edge to give the Kings a 3-1 lead four minutes into the third period. He made a slick fake that drew the defense in and then whipped a shot home to stretch his goal-scoring streak to four games.
The Sharks pulled within one at 6:56, when defenseman Dan Boyle finished off a crisp passing play by beating Quick with a wrist shot from the right circle, but Penner gave them a two-goal cushion and Carter found the empty net.
“Right now we’re standing pretty good but we’ve got to keep going,” Kopitar said. “We all know there’s still some work left to be done and we’re prepared for it.”
