In Los Angeles, the Kings seem to have found the switch in the dark and flipped it. Monday night saw the Kings win their fifth straight, this time over the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning.
“Things are coming together for us,” Anze Kopitar said. “We’re playing with more desperation. We should have before, but now it’s clicking for us. We’re getting some breaks too, that certainly doesn’t hurt. We’ve just got to keep on going. We’re still in a hole. We know that.”
Anze Kopitar’s second period goal woke the Kings Monday night – file photo by Jack Lima
Kopitar scored for the first time in 11 games to tie the game at one all in the second.
Jordan Nolan and Jeff Carter scored in the third to give the Kings a 3-1 lead.
“We scored big goals tonight,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “Nolan’s goal is a big goal. Obviously Carter’s goal is a big goal. Getting goals from different lines, you can’t just get it from one line, you have to be able to spread it around a little bit.”
The Bolts’ Tyler Johnson scored with 30 seconds left in regulation to make the final ticks of the clock a bit more exciting.
“They’re a tough team to play against,” Johnson said. “They’re very structured. They don’t give you very much. You beat one guy, you always have another guy there. I don’t think we played well enough in the third period. I don’t think we stuck to our structure enough. We weren’t forcing plays. We weren’t moving our feet as much. But credit to them. They played a solid third period as well.”
The first period had the Lightning get on the board with a goal from Nikita Nesterov, his first NHL marker. Most of the period had the Kings sleepwalking through the effort.
“I don’t know what it was, but we just woke up,” Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. “Definitely [Kopitar’s] goal gave us a little bit of a boost. To see him going and put pucks in the net is huge for our team. When he’s playing well, everyone plays well.”
It was two big points for the Kings who needed to keep pace with the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames, both of whom won Monday night.
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