Jones vs. Jhonas; Can’t Beat LA Kings

By Emily Redenbach
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Updated: January 25, 2016

It was the battle of the backups, and it was good. Not that Martin Jones is a backup any more, he’s more than proved himself as a competent starter, but it’s always nice to remember one’s roots. The LA Kings were coming off a rough game against the Arizona Coyotes in which Milan Lucic was suspended for punching an Kevin Connauton in the head. It’s likely he would have missed the game anyway, as the punch immediately followed Connauton slashing him with both hands on his stick, causing Lucic’s hand to go numb. At the time he believed the hand was broken. (It’s not.) The Sharks were coming off points in 7 of 8 games.

The Kings opened strong, the complete opposite of the day before. It took almost 7 minutes for the Sharks to even get a sho

t on goal. By then the Kings had 7. They controlled the neutral zone, had quality shots (more than once it was a matter of millimeters between a goal and that clink of the post we heard instead.) They also had the first power play of the evening, when Brenden Dillon sent a high stick to Alec Martinez’s face. Nothing resulted but the Kings had good puck movement and quality chances – the best came from Anze Kopitar. Ironically enough the best chance during the Sharks power play this period also came from Kopitar. Well, not the best but he does like to taunt the shorthanded. The power play did allow the Sharks to creep up shots on goal wise to half of the Kings (10-5 by the periods close) but by the end of the first the score remained 0-0.

1:25 into the second period the Kings again found themselves on the power play, when Joe Thornton tripped Tanner Pearson, but it was much less effective than their first. So ineffective that Joe Pavelski managed to score mere seconds after it ended and the Kings were caught on a line change. Why they were on a line change when Pavelski and Thornton were practically on their own in the Kings zone I’m not sure. Darryl Sutter used his coaches challenge but the goal was ruled onside and the call on the ice stood. Despite outplaying the Sharks the Kings found themselves down 1-0 3:39 into the second. Drew Doughty found himself on the wrong side of a slash next, in which the Sharks had their fair share of chances. Dwight King and his line had a little fun in the Sharks end but never had a good look on goal. A second penalty by a defenseman (Brayden McNabb) later in the period produced an almost identical PK. The Kings came close to ending the period with a goal by Jeff Carter but Jones came up big for the Sharks, who by this point had evened out the shot totals 21-18 Kings. Unfortunately it was 1-0 Sharks at the close of the second.

Not long into the third period the Kings had a good chance to even up the score (and they did!) when Mike Brown elbowed Drew Doughty in the head causing him to fall into enemy territory, the Sharks bench. (I’d be more offended having to be that close to so many Sharks than the roughing personally.) Doughty it seemed took the hit personally and responded with a power play goal! Anze Kopitar and Jeff Carter (mostly Kopitar, he was on form this game) kept the puck alive and in the Kings zone, finally getting the puck out to Jake Muzzin at the blue line, who fed it to Doughty for his blast of a shot that beat Jones blocker side.

The next few minutes seemed to be all in the Kings zone, including a play that send Dustin Brown down to the ice, dazed. Eventually Logan Couture brought the Sharks the goal they’d been looking for, at 11:32, leaving the Kings little time to catch up. It didn’t help that Doughty made his way to the box again with 5:54 remaining. With 4:43 remaining Joonas Donskoi evened it up for some 4-on-4 then some Kings power play time, and with only 45 seconds left the Kings could barely get it out of their own zone. Turns out they didn’t need much more than that, because they tied the game with 12.2 seconds remaining! The shot came from Dustin Brown from the point. Tanner Pearson got the first rebound and it was Vincent Lecavalier who finally got it in the back of the net.

We went into the 3-on-3 OT, which really creates some beautiful hockey, and we got a lot of it. The game winning goal came from Marian Gaborik (you heard correctly, I know you haven’t read that name on the scoresheet recently) with only 56 seconds remaining in OT. He caught the stretch pass from Tyler Toffoli and was wide open (so much ice with 3-on-3!) to shoot top shelf over Jones’ glove. It was a hard fought win against the closest divisional rival in the standings. The Kings play next at Staples Center Wednesday evening against the Colorado Avalanche.

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