Anze Kopitar scored, then Jarrett Stoll got a short-handed goal. There was another score in the final second of the second period.Once the Los Angeles Kings got going, the Blackhawks just couldn’t stop them. Dustin Brown converted his own rebound with 1:27 remaining and the Kings scored all their goals in the final two periods of a 5-4 victory over the Blackhawks on Monday night.
“It was just a team effort,” Kopitar said. “Going into the game we knew we had to get 20 guys on board with a team effort was the intention we had. We just stuck with it.”
It was Los Angeles’ highest-scoring game since a 5-2 victory over San Jose on March 16 and came on the heels of consecutive shutout losses to Dallas and Vancouver. The scoreless stretch reached 150 minutes, 35 seconds before Kopitar picked up his 10th goal of the season at 4:21 in the second.
“We got good games out of our third and fourth lines, and Brownie scored a big goal at the end,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “They’re probably not happy with the way they played, and if we’d have lost, we wouldn’t have been happy with the way we played.”
Brown’s first attempt went off the back of Blackhawks defenseman Johnny Oduya, but it bounced right back to the captain, who sent it past Corey Crawford for his 12th of the season. Kopitar set up the score by winning a faceoff in Hawks end.
“We didn’t respond to the challenge that was there tonight and I was disappointed with how we played and what we gave them,” Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said.
Michael Frolik had two goals and an assist for the Blackhawks, who have lost two in a row. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews also scored, and Duncan Keith finished with three assists.The Blackhawks were without right wing Marian Hossa for the second straight game due to an upper-body injury. Hossa isn’t expected to play Tuesday night against Calgary, but could return this weekend.Toews gave the Hawks the lead when he beat Jonathan Quick with a backhander early in the third period, but Tyler Toffoli responded with a tying snap shot with 11:54 remaining.Dwight King also scored for Los Angeles, which will be honored at the White House on Tuesday for winning the Stanley Cup last season.
“We kept battling,” Toffoli said. “Pucks started going in. We’d lost two at home, so we wanted to get the road trip going well. Now it’s important to carry it into the next game.”
Kopitar picked up a loose puck, skated in and sent a beautiful shot over a sliding Oduya and into the upper right corner of the goal to tie it at 1 in the second. It was the first goal for Los Angeles since Stoll scored a power-play goal in the third period of a 3-2 victory over Phoenix last Tuesday.After Stoll and Frolik exchanged scores in the middle of the period, Kane gave the Blackhawks the lead when he waited until the perfect moment to slide the puck past a prone Quick on the left side of the net for his team-best 17th of the season. Los Angeles needed just 40 seconds to respond, getting the tying goal at 19:59 of the period. Drew Doughty made a strong push that was denied by Crawford, but the rebound went off King’s skate and in for his fourth on the year.And just like that, the Kings had equaled their output from the previous three games in just one period.
“For them to tie it up I think gave them the momentum,” Kane said. “But we came back and took the lead and obviously didn’t play very well with the lead. Tough loss for sure.”
The Blackhawks used a quick burst of precision passing to jump in front 5:55 into the game. Toews won a faceoff in the Kings’ end back to Keith, who quickly sent it forward to Brandon Saad. The rookie forward then passed it to the middle to Frolik, who whipped it past Quick for his first goal since the Hawks 5-2 victory at Los Angeles in the season opener on Jan. 19.The Hawks had a chance to add to the lead, but was unable to score during a four-minute power play in the first. Los Angeles hasn’t allowed a power-play goal since the second period of a 4-3 loss to San Jose on March 14, killing off the past 17 chances it has faced.
“We worked hard,” Brown said. “We didn’t get discouraged. We battled against different things each period. The four-minute kill was huge in the first. It gave us a chance to battle back.”
NOTES—Brandon Bollig and Kings C Jordan Nolan dropped their gloves and ditched their helmets for a fight in the second period. Bollig patted Nolan on the back of the head after it was broken up by the officials, then skated over to the penalty box and pounded the glass as the door closed…..The Kings have never been shut out in three consecutive games…..Daniel Carcillo and Sheldon Brookbank also were scratched for the Blackhawks.