The playoff races don’t begin in earnest until the NHL returns
from its All-Star break next week. But that didn’t stop the Kings
from getting a head start on their postseason push Wednesday at
Staples Center. Playing a red-hot San Jose team they need to pass
to reach the postseason, the Kings rallied to force overtime, then
outlasted the Sharks through four rounds of a shootout to come away
with a 3-2 win.
LOS ANGELES
The playoff races don’t begin in earnest until the NHL returns from its All-Star break next week. But that didn’t stop the Kings from getting a head start on their postseason push Wednesday at Staples Center.
Playing a red-hot San Jose team they need to pass to reach the postseason, the Kings rallied to force overtime, then outlasted the Sharks through four rounds of a shootout to come away with a 3-2 win.
“The position that we are in right now, everything’s serious,” said center Anze Kopitar, the Kings’ lone All-Star selection. “Pretty much every game is important for us. We dug ourselves a little bit of a hole here, so we’ve got to gain some ground.”
They certainly played with urgency Wednesday, entertaining a sellout crowd in a well-played game that had the feel of a playoff matchup.
Jarret Stoll finally won it with a well-placed wrist shot that beat San Jose goalie Antti Niemi high on his glove side in the shootout. Kings goalie Jonathan Quick then made a sprawling save on the Sharks’ Patrick Marleau to seal the win, his team’s third in a row.
But none of that would have happened had the Kings not gotten some heroics from Alexei Ponikarovsky early in the third.
Talk about desperation. Ponikarovsky, who hadn’t scored since Dec. 18, needs to make an impression to hang on to his limited playing time when Marco Sturm comes off injured reserve. And he took a big step toward that Wednesday with a hard-earned goal that erased a 2-1 Sharks lead at 5:47 of the final period.
The play started with Michal Handzus launching a long slap shot that got tangled up in traffic in front of the San Jose net. Ponikarovsky collected the loose puck and got off a weak backhander, but the rebound of that shot bounced right back on his stick and he didn’t miss the second time, beating Niemi cleanly, then dropping to his knees in thanks and celebration.
The Kings showed their mettle once more in the period, forcing overtime by killing off a four-minute power play after Brad Richardson was sent off at 13:19 with a double-minor for high sticking Sharks defenseman Douglas Murray.
“That was a great penalty-kill,” the Kings’ Jack Johnson said. “It was a great game.”
One that gives the Kings momentum heading in the league-wide break.
The Sharks came in having won four in a row, pulling to within a victory of the top eight in the Western Conference.
The Kings came in with a chance to tie the Sharks in the standings.
For more the half the game the teams played to a scoreless standoff, but that changed in the hockey equivalent of the blink of an eye late in the second period.
Ryan Smyth gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 6:25 only to see San Jose erase that advantage when Ryane Clowe and Devin Setoguchi beat Quick just 39 seconds apart.
— Story by Kevin Baxter, Los Angeles Times
