Kings Falter Late Against Coyotes
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Brad Richardson scored the go-ahead goal with 8:13 left in the third period and Martin Hanzal got his first two goals of the season, leading the Arizona Coyotes to a 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday night.
Mike Smith made 33 saves in his 400th regular-season game, helping the Coyotes improve to 6-2-1 on the road and complete a Southern California sweep that included Monday night's 4-3 overtime victory at Anaheim.
Dustin Brown snapped a 14-game goal drought this season and Tyler Toffoli also scored for the Kings. Jonathan Quick made 22 saves.
Jordan Martinook shook off a check by Anze Kopitar in the right corner and backhanded the puck toward the front of the crease, where Richardson redirected it past Quick for his second goal.
The Kings had grabbed a 2-1 lead at the 5-minute mark of the second period while Connor Murphy was off for hooking Tanner Pearson.
Jamie McBain faked a slap shot above the right circle and sent a cross-ice pass to Toffoli, who beat Smith over the right shoulder with a wrist shot from the middle of the left circle for his 10th goal — making him the first Kings player to reach double digits.
But the Coyotes outshot Los Angeles 13-1 over the final 10:35 of the period, and Hanzal tied it for the second time at 9:59 with a 20-foot backhander from the slot that beat Quick high to the glove side. Oliver Ekman-Larsson started the play by flipping the puck toward the net from the left point, and Kings defenseman Alec Martinez failed to clear it after it hit him.
The Kings opened the scoring at 5:54 of the first period after playing more than 5 1/2 minutes before getting their first shot on net.
Kopitar won a faceoff deep in the Coyotes end, and Drew Doughty redirected Pearson's pass toward the net. But Smith couldn't control the bouncing puck, and Brown poked it past him to end the second-longest season-opening goal drought of his 12-year career. The Kings' captain went the first 17 games of his 2003-04 rookie campaign without one.
Smith withstood a flurry of quality scoring chances by the Kings after Brown's goal, and Hanzal tied it at 11:37 of the first with a 25-foot wrist shot from the slot that beat Quick to the stick side after Hanzal intercepted Brayden McNabb's attempted clearing pass from behind his own net.
NOTES: Coyotes LW Max Domi has seven goals in his first 15 games. His father, longtime enforcer Tie Domi, didn't get his seventh goal until his 108th career game. Max has 6 penalty minutes, compared to the 120 his dad totaled in his first 15 games — including 37 in his NHL debut with Toronto. Tie Domi finished his career third on the league's career penalty-minute list with 3,515. . Smith became the fourth goalie to reach 100 regular-season victories with the Coyotes' franchise, joining Ilya Bryzgalov (130), Bob Essensa (129) and Nikolai Khabibulin (126). ... Arizona D Shane Doan's plus-minus rating since the start of last season is minus-35. . Coming into the game, the Kings were averaging a league-high 13.4 penalty minutes, and the Coyotes were a league-worst 11.3 percent on the power play (6 for 53). . This was the first time the Coyotes have played consecutive games in Southern California on the same trip since November 2006. . Kings D Matt Greene, who hasn't scored a goal in 41 career games against the Coyotes, didn't get a chance to end that drought. He missed his 12th straight game with an upper-body injury.
(© Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
