*Photo from the Los Angeles Times*
Things are heating up in southern California. Carl Grundstrom had a goal and an assist, Drew Doughty scored, and the Los Angeles Kings defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets with a 4-1 victory on Thursday night in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles has now won two games in a row, 7 of their past 8, and are 8-1-1 in their last 10, now 40-20-9 and second place in the Pacific Division. Grundstrom was the only multi point scorer, with 8 other Kings skaters registering a point.
It was Doughty started the scoring for the Kings, making it 1-0 on his 5th goal of the season, assisted by Grundstrom and Rasmus Kupari 4:44 into the second period. Anze Kopitar scored 7:42 into the second, doubling the Kings lead to 2-0 on his 26th goal of the season. Viktor Arvidsson then scored his 19th goal of the season to make the lead 3-0.
Doughty said of his goal that "I used to do that all the time when I was younger. I kind of put it on the back burner for a long time. Just kind of learned to win hockey games I don't need to do that. I need to play a good two-way game and, yeah, maybe I should do it more often. But I just had my opportunity to do it tonight and was able to pull them off."
At the 13:48 mark of the second period, Grundstrom scored his 8th goal of the season to move the Kings lead to 4-0, scoring unassisted. The only goal of the 3rd period came from the Blue Jackets, with their only goal coming from Kirill Marchenko 4:31 into the period, making it 4-1 with Gavin Bayreuther getting the lone assist.
Los Angeles head coach Todd McClellan said of the win that "Four lines and three pairs of defensemen are committed to doing things right. I look at the goal we gave up tonight, we did everything we wanted to do or needed to do. Went off the ref’s foot and into the slot and they score, so those are gonna get built into games or series, and you have to be able to overcome them. But just complete commitment to doing what we do."
Getting the start for the Kings was Pheonix Copley, who turned in an impressive outing to pick up the win. Copley stopped all but one of the 30 shots the Blue Jackets had, which was good for a .967 save percentage. His record is now 21-4-3 this season.
It was Daniil Tarasov who got the start for the Blue Jackets, getting the loss to fall to 3-10-1 in 14 starts. Tarasov turned aside 23 out of the 27 shots the Kings sent towards him before he was pulled from the game. Michael Hutchinson came on in relief and made 9 saves.
Blue Jackets head coach Brad Larsen said of the loss postgame that "We got stubborn in some areas. The puck management, it caught up to us in the second period. The first three goals are just blatant turnovers in the neutral zone."
Up next, the Blue Jackets finish a back to back by playing the Anaheim Ducks on Friday night, with Hutchinson expected to start. Joonas Korpisalo is the projected starter for the Kings against the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night.
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