Another Kings-Stars game and they needed more than 60 minutes to decide things. Big surprise. Among the things these two teams have become known for over the last few years would be close games, usually decided by just one goal, and wild comebacks by either side.
Last night featured both. The Stars went up 2-0 before the Kings began chipping away at things – even doing the unthinkable, scoring multiple goals on the power play. In the end, LA gave up a late goal to Dallas, tying things at 4-4. Overtime, nothing. Then, the Stars won in the shootout.
When things were over, here’s what they were saying back in the visiting team dressing room…
Coach Glen Gulutzan on the overall game – “They are a real good team and I’m a big fan of Darryl Sutter—six years in Las Vegas and you can certainly see his influence on that team. I thought it was a tremendous hockey game tonight, maybe not for the coaches but for the fans. It was real exciting; it was fast I thought through 65 full minutes, so it was a real good game.”
Gulatzan on Brenden Morrow’s hit on Anze Kopitar (video below) – “We watched it in slow motion there and we watched it again. In my mind it was a clean hit but he fell very awkward. I hope he’s okay. I don’t know the extent on anything there but he fell awkwardly into the boards. I don’t think anything will come of it but that’s for the League to decide. Hopefully he is okay. [Kari Lehtonen] was hurt too in that goal mouth pile up there but he is going to be fine.”
Loui Eriksson on the overall game – “Of course it is an important win for us. We always play tight games against LA. I thought we came back there pretty good and finally won the game, so it was two big points for us.”
Eriksson on the third period – “It was really intense out there. I thought we took a little too many penalties but we found a way to stick with it and we got the two points.”
Eriksson on improvements vs earlier games : “I thought we played really hard-working game through the whole game. I think all the guys worked really hard and Kari [Lehtonen] was good for us again here. It was just a solid game for the whole game and we came up with the two points.”
Eriksson on the four minute power play – “We have to be better on the power play. We finally got it in there on the last second on the power play. We got some help from a guy on their team, but we’ll take it…I thought we had a really good power play, the last one we had there. We were ready for the rebounds and we had it in their zone for the whole power play. And we finally got one in.”
Eriksson on his shootout goal – “I’ve done that before and it worked again tonight. It was nice to see it go in…I was going to fake, shoot blocker and just drag it with my backhand.”
For some bonus audio, click here to listen to Eric Nystrom’s comments.
Post-game reaction from Kings’ captain Dustin Brown and winger Justin Williams can be found here. More Kings-Stars related links are listed below for your reference.
The Mayor
www.twitter.com/MayorNHL
www.facebook.com/MayorsManor
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