Sharks Unable To Hold Off Kings, Lose In Overtime
LOS ANGELES (CBS / AP) -- Anze Kopitar scored on a power play 2:32 into overtime after setting up Justin Williams' tying power play goal with 7:39 left in the third period, and the Los Angeles Kings rallied from behind three times Wednesday night to beat the San Jose Sharks 4-3.
Drew Doughty and Jarret Stoll also had goals and Jonathan Quick stopped 17 shots in the first meeting of the season between the Pacific Division rivals, helping the Kings win for the eighth time in 11 games.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Joe Pavelski and Logan Couture scored for the Sharks, who finished the first month of the season 10-1-2 and set a franchise record for wins in October. Antti Niemi made 19 saves in the finale of a 3-2 road trip.
Williams got the equalizer on a pass from Kopitar, beating Niemi high to the glove side after the Sharks were assessed their second bench minors of the game for having too many men on the ice.
Kopitar got the game-winner on a one-timer from the slot on a pass from Doughty, after Sharks defenseman Justin Braun was sent off for hooking Jeff Carter as he carried the puck to the net.
A costly turnover by Kings defenseman Willie Mitchell led to the seventh goal of the season by Couture, putting the Sharks ahead 3-2 during at 18:04 of the second. Kyle Clifford was off for goaltender interference when Jason Demers intercepted Mitchell's attempted clearing pass from behind the net, and Couture finished off a perfectly executed tic-tac-toe play with Demers and Patrick Marleau.
Pavelski gave the Sharks a 2-1 lead at 11:27 of the first, getting a cross-ice pass from Tommy Wingels and beating Quick to the glove side from short range for his fifth goal after Carter overskated the puck about 10 feet inside the Kings' blueline.
The Kings tied it at 3:15 of the second when Slava Voynov got the puck from Dustin Brown just inside the blueline and took a slap shot along the ice that Stoll redirected past Niemi's stick. It was the second goal in two games for Stoll, following a 12-game dry spell that was the longest season-opening drought of his career.
Just 13 seconds after Logan Couture won the opening faceoff from Anze Kopitar, Couture worked the puck away from Kopitar along the right boards in the Kings' zone and set up Vlasic in the slot for a one-timer that beat Quick to the stick side from 30 feet.
It was the fifth time in the Sharks' first 13 games that they scored during the opening minute, but the lead didn't last long. Kopitar checked defenseman Matt Irwin off the puck behind the San Jose net and it ricocheted out to Justin Williams, who set up Doughty for a 40-foot wrist shot that beat Niemi through a screen at 2:32.
NOTES: The Kings knocked the Sharks out of last year's playoffs, winning their second-round matchup in seven games and holding them to fewer than three goals in six of them. ... Darryl Sutter's teams are 9-5-6) with one tie in the regular season and 8-5 in the playoffs against the Sharks since they fired him as coach in December 2002. His Calgary Flames beat them in a six-game Western Conference final series in 2004. ... Sharks LW Matthew Nieto, who was born in nearby Long Beach, was scratched for the second straight game. He has played two games in Southern California, one at Staples Center and one in Anaheim. ... San Jose allowed more than two goals for only the third time in its first 13 games. ... The Kings have allowed a power play goal in six straight games.
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