Before anyone puts a fork in the Los Angeles Kings they might want to sit back and wait for another few games. On Tuesday, the Kings yielded a goal to the New York Rangers in the first minute of the game and roared back to score four unanswered goals to win 4-2.
“We needed wins, so we played two games and we’ve got two wins right now, but we’ve gotta keep grinding,” Kings defenseman Matt Greene said. “We’re still chasing a playoff spot here and we gotta win as many games as we can.”
Anze Kopitar had two assists to earn game’s first star – file photo by Jack Lima
Needed and need wins going forward. In their favor, the Winnipeg Jets lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 5-2 Tuesday, giving the Kings added hope.
“I’ve said it plenty of times, we definitely don’t want to be in this kind of position, but it does seem like we do play good hockey when our backs are against the wall,” Anze Kopitar said. “We dug ourselves a hole, so we’ve gotta climb out of it.”
The Kings slowed the Rangers’ speed all night and limited their chances on the breakout.
“At points during the game, we controlled the game, just the zone time,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “We’re good at that. That’s what our team does. We spend time with the puck and we spend time in the offensive zone. You don’t always get rewarded for that, but tonight we did.”
But the Rangers also failed to generate any enthusiasm for the game and seemed as if they would win because of their record.
“It’s very hard to explain,” New York coach Alain Vigneault said. “We were second on the puck and we were second on 1-on-1s. Our execution wasn’t what it needed to be against such a strong opponent, and we paid the price for it.
“I know that coming into this game everybody knew what we were up against and that it was going to take a real strong effort and our ‘A’ game. We didn’t have that tonight. I can’t explain why.”
The Kings now on to play the New York Islanders
“That’s how we have to play in order to win games,” Kopitar said. “We just have to worry about what we can control, and it is playing like this on a nightly basis.”
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