In Columbus, the Blue Jackets carried a 3-0 lead into the third period on Tuesday, and promptly surrendered three third period goals to the Los Angles Kings, and then a an overtime strike by Drew Doughty in a 4-3 loss.
Phillip Danault hit for a double in the third period rally by the Kings to draw them to within one at 3-2.
The Kinks tied the game to force the extra session when Arthur Kaliyev scored at 6:38.
“We definitely woke up in the third period, that one was better, and just took charge,” Danault said. “We started to be more direct and scored some goals.”
LA improved their season opening road record to 10 straight win, tying an NHL record.
“It’s huge,” the Kings’ Vladislav Gavrikov said. “Winning is always fun, especially right now. That kind of hot streak, we’ve got to keep going.”
Kings improved to 15-4-3
“We played two pretty poor periods to start with and if we wanted to have any chance of coming back, we had to change our mental approach to the game, and physical, but more mental,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “A lot of uncharacteristic things in the first two periods, not necessarily that we were outworked but certainly outmanaged, and in the third we adjusted a few things. Most of that was between the ears.”
Pheonix Copley made 26 saves in the win.
Columbus took a 1-0 lead in the first stanza on a power play marker from Kirill Marchenko midway through the period.
Johnny Gaudreau pushed the advantage to 2-0 5:24 of the middle frame.
The Blue Jackets dropped to 8-14-5.
“We stopped playing our game,” Columbus’ Zach Werenski said. “We stopped doing what we’re doing for the first two periods and we let them back in. I don’t know what the answer is to that.
“What do we have to lose at this point? Let’s keep playing aggressive. Why are we trying to play defense and let teams be in our zone and get shots and stuff like that? At this point in the season, we have to find ways to win games.”
The Blue Jackets extended the lead to 3-0 when Mathieu Olivier scored at 12:03 of the second period.
“We just seemed to be in this kind of vicious circle where we start a game strong, have really good first few periods and then we kind of back off. It needs to be addressed,” Olivier said. “We can’t keep talking about this. We’ve got to figure out a way to stop that.”
Elvis Merzlikins made 35 saves in the loss.
“The way we played the first two periods, we had nothing to change. Just we were a little bit hesitant,” Columbus coach Pascal Vincent said. “So, it’s experience, confidence.”
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