After having lost their previous five games at home to Edmonton in the format, they prevail in six rounds to give Terry Murray his 100th win as Kings coach.
Kings defenseman Drew Doughty celebrates with goaltender Jonathan Quick after he prevented the Oilers' Andrew Cogliano from scoring in a shootout to give L.A. the victory Thursday night at Staples Center. (Danny Moloshok / Reuters / December 23, 2010)
The Kings ended a peculiar streak against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday night, going to the sixth round of a sudden-death shootout for a 3-2 victory that goaltender Jonathan Quick sealed with a glove save of an Andrew Cogliano shot.
The Oilers had won their previous five games against the Kings in Staples Center since Dec. 3, 2007, all in shootouts.
But when Jarret Stoll's sixth-round shot got a piece of Edmonton goalie Devan Dubnyk before dribbling over the line for a goal, and Quick snuffed Cogliano, the Kings snapped that streak and gave Terry Murray his 100th win as Kings coach.
Edmonton's Jordan Eberle and the Kings' Dustin Brown each scored goals in the first three rounds of the shootout, which ended in a 1-1 tie.
The Kings played the final 26 seconds of overtime a man down after taking a penalty for too many men on the ice, and the threesome of Rob Scuderi, Drew Doughty and Michal Handzus barely killed it off.
Quick made one nice save in the final seconds, and Edmonton's Dustin Penner was unable to get his stick on Sam Gagner's pass through the crease as time expired.
The Oilers took a 2-1 lead at the 4:25 mark of the third period when Jean-Francois Jacques re-directed a Theo Peckham shot from the blue line through traffic past Quick for his first goal of the season.
But the Kings countered 20 seconds later when Jack Johnson, who had fallen to his knees in the left faceoff circle, got up in time to take a pass from Wayne Simmonds and fire a wrist shot past Dubnyk for a 2-2 tie.
Both teams scored power-play goals in the second period, the Oilers taking a 1-0 lead on Taylor Hall's wrist shot from the left side that slipped under Quick's right pad at the 1:39 mark, and the Kings evening the score on Justin Williams' goal at the 8:31 mark.
How rare was the 11th goal of the season by Hall, the 19-year-old whiz kid of a winger who was the first overall pick in the 2010 draft?
The Kings had allowed only two power-play goals in 50 tries in their first 14 home games, a 96% penalty-kill rate that was the best home mark in the NHL, and they successfully fought off another penalty in the first.
But a hooking infraction by the Kings' Michal Handzus gave Edmonton a man-advantage at the 1:22 mark of the second, and the Oilers capitalized with Hall's shot from the left circle.
A high-sticking penalty by Edmonton's Linus Omark gave the Kings a power play at the 7:42 mark of the second.
The Kings took advantage with Williams' 13th goal, which was set up by Handzus, who took a pass from Johnson at the blue line and flicked the puck to Williams driving down the left side.
Williams shielded Ladislav Smid with his body and beat Dubnyk glove-side with a wrist shot for a 1-1 tie and his 30th point in his 33rd game this season.
Williams had 29 points in 49 games last season.
Johnson recorded his 13th power-play assist of the season, and Handzus' assist was his fourth in the last five games.
The Kings caught a break later in the period when the Oilers' Magnus Paajarvi took a pass from Penner in the crease, but Paajarvi's point-blank shot hit the post, and Quick covered up with 6:25 left in the period.
Play was a little ragged in a scoreless first period marked by incomplete passes, pucks bouncing off skates and a feisty scrap between Kings winger Kyle Clifford and Peckham, who each got a few good shots in before Peckham dragged Clifford to the ice.
It took a little more than seven minutes for Edmonton to register its first shot on goal in the game.
The Kings weren't exactly peppering the Oilers' net either, with nine shots in the period compared to six for Edmonton.
The Kings got a scare with about 31/2 minutes left in the first, when Scuderi got smacked in the face by Tom Gilbert's stick as he fell to the ice next to his net.
Scuderi crashed into the boards and was slow to get up, but he managed to skate to the Kings bench and returned to action and took his regular shifts in the second and third periods.
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