Jonathan Quick made 25 saves in win over Islanders – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
It must be infuriating for the rest of the National Hockey League to see what the Los Angeles Kings do at the end of every season. After a lackluster performance through most of the schedule, the Kings seem to be able to find that switch and turn on the quality light.
On Thursday, the Kings continued their five-game roadie with a 3-2 regulation win over the New York Islanders.
Anze Kopitar scored the game-winner with less than five minutes remaining in the third period.
“Most of the teams that we are going to play are fighting for position, so it will be all hard games,” said Kopitar.
It was his 16th goal of the season.
“We didn’t have the best road record coming in, but it doesn’t really matter what happened,” Kopitar said. “We are looking ahead now. We have eight games left and we have to win a few more of them to get the [Stanley Cup Playoff] spot. It was a great team win.”
On the other side, the Isles have had their issues of late dropping their six home games, 0-5-1, and offense continues to be a problem.
“We’re trying to get the results we want. We had a tough start.” Islanders captain John Tavares said. “Being on [the ice] for three goals against and not being hard enough on the puck and doing the little things at important times really cost us. I have to be better. Guys look to me. We as a group just have to stay with it and keep working away. ”
If not for the woes of the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Islanders would be in third place in the divisional race.
“We played a really good team battling for a playoff spot,” Islanders coach Jack Capuano said. “All of a sudden [in the third period], we try to be fancy, we try to make the sexy plays, and it ends up in the back of the net.
“Guys work extremely hard to win every game at home and we’ve lost four or five straight games at home.”
Tyler Toffoli scored his fifth shorthanded goal of the season for LA in the third period to give the Kings a brief lead.
“Shorthanded is always a momentum for you even though they came back and scored,” Los Angeles coach Darryl Sutter said. “I think we had some shifts after it was 2-2 that were pretty good momentum shifts until we finally did find a way to score.”
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