The Los Angeles Kings looked every bit like a team playing their third game in four days at the start of their game against the Dallas Stars. They were flat, and the Stars were eager to end their slump. Yet the Kings managed to overcome the slow start, and forward Milan Lucic scored the go-ahead goal 6:17 into the third period to give Los Angeles a 3-2 win at Staples Center. Lucic snapped a shot past goaltender Kari Lehtonen and into the left side of the net, breaking a 2-2 tie. The Kings pinned the Stars in their zone as Antoine Roussel lost his stick, and worked the puck to Lucic in the high slot.
Jonathan Quick made 27 saves and Vincent Lecavalier scored his third power-play goal in as many games for the Kings, who have points in 10 of 12 games since Christmas. Anze Kopitar had two assists, giving him 20 points in his past 12 games.
The Stars are 1-5-2 in January and winless in eight straight road games (0-5-3). They finished 0-2-1 on a three-game trip through California. Dallas coach Lindy Ruff pointed to the struggles of his top line of Jamie Benn, Tyler Sequin and Jason Spezza; the trio came at the Kings hard in the third period, but Quick made 11 saves, several on high-quality chances. Quick also stopped John Klingberg on a breakaway in the second period.
Dallas got a quick-response goal by Cody Eakin with 26 seconds left in the first period to tie it 2-2. Eakin grabbed Patrick Sharp's rebound and beat a sliding Quick. The rush started when Alec Martinez had the puck go off his stick and out to the neutral zone. Eakin's goal came 33 seconds after the Kings scored to erase a poor start in which they did not have a shot in the opening six minutes but got goals from Lecavalier and Drew Doughty in a six-minute span.
Doughty's eighth goal came on a slap shot as teammate Tyler Toffoli crossed Lehtonen's path at 19:01. Lecavalier one-timed a hard shot to the left corner on the power play at 13:31. He has as many goals (three) in his past three games with the Kings as he did in his final 42 games with the Philadelphia Flyers, dating back to last season.
The Stars grabbed the lead 3:03 into the game when a wide-open Ales Hemsky converted Mattias Janmark's pass for his fifth goal of the season. Esa Lindell made his NHL debut and was a minus-1 in 14:01. The Stars return home to host the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, the same night the Kings play the Minnesota Wild at Staples Center.
Roussel said Dallas' three-game homestand before the All-Star break is key for a team that has won once in eight games this month, six of which were played on the road.
Stars Quotes
Lindy Ruff: "I think the biggest thing is our big boys haven't been converting," Ruff said. "It's tough on the rest of the lineup when they're not on the scoresheet. When they're on the scoresheet, we're going to win games. They're having a little bit of a tough time right now."Antoine Roussel: "The teams in the League are getting better. They aim at us. They look at the Stars and say, 'We're going to beat those guys.' At the start, we were a surprising team. I don't think it's like that anymore."
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