In Nashville Saturday night, the Los Angeles Kings got another over time goal from Tanner Pearson to give them a 2-1 win over the Predators.
Pearson did the same magic in New York to beat the Rangers earlier on their road trip.
Jonathan Quick made 33 saves in win over Nashville – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“I knew [forward Jeff Carter] and [defensemen Drew Doughty] had been out there for a while, so I wanted to just hold it so they could get a change,” Pearson said. “The key thing is have possession in [overtime] as much as possible, and we were able to do that and create a chance up the ice. [Forward Nick Shore] drove to the net pretty well and pushed the [defensemen] back, and I was able to get a shot off.”
The Kings ended their seven-game roadie at 3-3-1.
“Long road trip,” Kings forward Milan Lucic said. “Nice to finish it off with a win to get to .500 on the road trip. Obviously I think we left a couple of points on the table if you look at the road trip as a whole, just not being able to capitalize on chances and getting go-ahead goals and things like that. I thought as a whole, we competed really hard in all of the seven games. You take away probably the first period against the [New York Islanders], pretty good road trip as far as the competitiveness goes.
“Today, they pushed us hard. They’re a really good hockey team. Just nice that we were able to get a big win here tonight.”
Jonathan Quick made 33 saves in the win and LA killed five of six penalties.
“That seemed to be a theme this whole road trip, on the kill,” Lucic said. “We definitely didn’t do ourselves a favor by taking all of the penalties that we did on this road trip, and especially here tonight. I think if you look at this game as a whole, you’ve definitely got to credit the [penalty kill] and [Quick], who was probably our best [penalty killer] out there. Sometimes that’s what it takes to win is a good penalty kill, and it was able to get the job done tonight.”
Jake Muzzin scored for the Kings in regulation.
“Just a faceoff win walk,” Muzzin said. “Just trying to get a puck to the net, and it found its way in. That’s about it. The guys did a great job getting in front and causing some screens and havoc there, and it just found its way in.”
Pekka Rinne took the loss for the Predators on 28 saves.
Ryan Ellis scored the lone Predators goal.
“I thought it was a great hockey game, back and forth, two teams working really hard,” Predators center Ryan Johansen said. “Maybe we deserved a little bit better of a fate. We had a couple of chances, just a couple of unlucky bounces, but both goalies were awesome. [Rinne] was awesome. It was a good hockey game. It’s too bad we couldn’t have found a way to win this before going on the road.”
Anze Kopitar remains day-to-day after suffering a lower-body injury in the OT loss to the St Louis Blues.
“With him in out of the lineup, throughout our whole lineup I thought we played well as a group today,” Pearson said. “It showed for the long run, and we were able to get the win to finish off the road trip.”
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