Kings strike late to tie, win in OT

The Doobie Brothers album entitled “What once were vices, are now habits” is an old refrain for the New York Rangers.

Earlier in the season, they surrendered late leads and lost games they had.

That was corrected at some point but of late they are returning to those old vices and making habits of them.

On Monday night, the Rangers gave up a goal to Adrian Kempe, his second of the game, at 19:00 to force extra time.

Tyler Toffoli scored with just 25 seconds gone in the extra session to lift the Los Angeles Kings to a 4-3 win.

“It’s big,” Kings coach Willie Desjardins said. “I’ve said our guys have good character. They’re excited. They wanted to do well. The Islander game was a tough game for us. It was a good feeling tonight winning.”

It was another loss ripped from the jaws of victory.

“We’ve had a tendency at times when we’re winning 2-1 to act like it’s 5-1,” Rangers head coach David Quinn said. “Such a fine line between winning and losing at this level, and you’ve got to finish the job.”

Henrik Lundqvist was beaten five-hole on the game winner.

Jonathan Quick made 24 saves in the win.

Mika Zibanejad, Adam McQuaid and Chris Kreider scored for the Rangers who dropped to 22-22-8.

“Listen, you’ve got to play 60 minutes and you can’t give an opportunity to a team like that that’s got some high-end guys that can take advantage of opportunities,” Quinn said. “I thought as the game went on we got more sloppy and weren’t as responsible and got away from some of the things that we were doing that I thought allowed us to have a really good first period.”

Anze Kopitar also scored for the Kings.

“We keep fighting,” Ilya Kovalchuk said. “We’re not going to give up. It’s 30 games left, you never know, especially in the west. It’s a lot of teams struggling so we just have to push and hope for the best.”

[WATCH: All Kings vs. Rangers highlights]

Lundqvist made 26 saves in the loss.

“It hurts, definitely,” Lundqvist said. “I thought we played really well the whole game, but that overtime goal sums it up, not only this game but a lot of games. The effort is there, crossbar and out, misses the shot and I don’t know what to think. It’s just really frustrating.”