In Raleigh Thursday night, the Los Angeles Kings benefitted from a 22-save effort from Peter Budaj in a 3-0 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
It was Budaj’s fifth shutout of the season.
“So far so good,” said Budaj, who got his 16th NHL shutout. “I’m very blessed to play the amount of games I’ve been playing (42). The team’s playing very good in front of me. Everything is falling into place. I’m very thankful. I just want to stay humble and work hard.”
The game was scoreless until the 15:17 mark of the third period when Marian Gaborik finally broke through for the Kings for a 1-0 lead.
“Me and (Anze) Kopitar made eye contact in our own zone and I saw he was by himself on the one side, so I decided to go over and help him,” Drew Doughty said. “When I got the puck, I looked over and saw Gaborik wide open. He made a great move to score.”
Just 38 seconds later Trevor Lewis beat Cam Word for a 2-0 lead to send the Canes to their fifth straight loss.
Kyle Clifford closed out an empty-netter as the Canes pulled Ward early for an extra attacker.
“There were definitely some chances,” Carolina coach Bill Peters said. “[The Kings] did a good job competing in the defensive zone. Nothing was for free, a lot of contested shot attempts, a lot of pucks deflected. So, a tight one.”
Ward made 27 saves in the loss for Carolina who dropped to 21-20-7.
“[Budaj] has been awesome. Everyone wants to blame where we are in the standings because we have guys injured, like Quick and [Tyler] Toffoli, but Budaj has been great night in and night out. He’s really deserving of the accolades he’s getting. Without him, we wouldn’t be where we are right now,” Doughty said of the play of Budaj Thursday and this season.
WATCH: All Kings vs. Hurricanes highlights
LA improved to 24-21-4 and finished their roadie with two straight wins.
“[Brayden] McNabb, [Derek] Forbort and [Kevin] Gravel, there’s three pretty young guys on the back end. And you need your goaltender to make some saves. At the end of the day, that’s the difference in most games, or just about every game,” LA head coach Darryl Sutter said of the effort his young defensemen.