The Kings earned their third consecutive win Saturday afternoon as they defeated the Ottawa Senators 5-2, rectifying their 8-7 overtime loss to the Senators earlier in the season. With the win, the Kings record now sits at 14-8-3, good for 31 points and second in the Pacific Division.
The Kings started quickly on Saturday, scoring just 1:57 into the game. Scoring on bit of a funky sequence, Alex Laferriere tallied his 11th goal of the season by sliding the puck towards the Senators net. En route to the net, the puck deflected off of a Senators defender, went through the legs of Anton Forsberg and into the net. The Senators responded and knotted the game at 1-1 late in the first period as Tim Stutzle beat David Rittich with a wrist shot from a 3-on-2 zone entry. All tied at 1-1 after 20 minutes, the shots favored the Kings 9-5.
The Senators took a brief lead in the second period at the 6:11 mark. Coming off of a face off win in the offensive zone, Thomas Chabot’s point shot was deflected by Adam Gaudette and passed Rittich for Gaudette’s 12th goal of the season. The Senators lead lasted just 1:15 as the Kevin Fiala and the Kings struck back instantly. All on his own, Fiala made a beautiful individual play to retrieve a loose puck, did a 360 and fired a wrist shot into the net to tie the game at two’s. Again tied after two, shots favored the Kings 18-15 entering the third.
For the second straight day the Kings entered the third period tied and scored immediately. This time it was captain Anze Kopitar showing off his hand-eye coordination. Batting a puck in out of mid air from just above the Senators crease, Kopitar buried his eighth goal of the season to give the Kings the eventual game-winning goal. The Kings then added an insurance goal with 3:46 to go in regulation on the man advantage when Fiala beautiful set up Adrian Kempe for the goal. An empty net goal from Trevor Moore followed and the Kings closed out their season series with Senators going 1-0-1.
Rittich returned to the net after one game off and stopped 20 of 22 shots to earn his ninth win of the season.
