In Newark, the Los Angeles Kings’ Cal Petersen made 23 saves in a 3-2 win over the New Jersey Devils on Sunday night.
The Kings ended a three-game-skid and improved to 21-16-5).
Carl Grundstrom scored the game-winner midway through the third period.
“It was a tough game,” Grundstrom said. “The key was to find a way to win. That’s the most important thing. That’s been a struggle the last couple of games.
“It’s huge to start with a win on a long road trip like this.”
New Jersey’s Jesper Bratt hit for a pair of goals in the loss.
“His speed is so dangerous,” New Jersey head coach Lindy Ruff said. “On the first goal, he got in behind them. We stretched them out, made a good play to get the puck up to [Bratt] and just his quickness alone created the goal. We’ve seen a lot of those goals this year, where he’s been able to stretch the ice and get behind the opposition.”
New Jersey dropped to 15-20-5.
“[The Kings] energy just seemed to be just a little bit better than ours,” Ruff said. “We couldn’t quite knock enough people off the puck. Couldn’t quite get to the front of the net. You got to give them a lot of credit. They did a real good job physically, boxing out and finishing the man.”
New Jersey had a 2-1 lead heading into the second period, Viktor Arvidsson struck to tie the game, 2-2.
“We came in with a little adversity,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said. “We haven’t played exceptionally well. We got stung early on, something we expected to happen, so we had to fight through it tonight. I thought as the night went on, we got better.”
LA’s A;ex Iafallo scored in the opening frame.
“We got to look back at the three losses we came in with, particularly how we lost them and the mistakes we’re making,” McLellan said. “We corrected a lot of those tonight. So that was a good first step.”
Jon Gillies made 34 saves in the loss.
“They played a smart game, they’re a good team,” Bratt said. “They play tough. I felt like we had a good push, and had some good chances, but it wasn’t really at the percentage we needed to get.”
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