LA Kings snap 11-game road skid, hold off rival Ducks 2-1
ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Jeff Carter and Matt Luff scored, Jonathan Quick made 36 saves and the Los Angeles Kings snapped their 11-game road winless skid Thursday night with a 2-1 victory over the Anaheim Ducks in the second Freeway Faceoff of the season.
Tyler Toffoli had two assists for the last-place Kings, who had been 0-10-1 away from Staples Center since their last road win Oct. 22 in Winnipeg.
With the shortest trip on its schedule kicking off a six-game road swing, Los Angeles improved to 3-12-1 on the road by jumping to an early lead and holding off a third-period surge by the rival Ducks, who have lost eight of 11.
Derek Grant scored a power play goal in the third period and John Gibson stopped 25 shots for the Ducks, who again failed to get their first back-to-back wins since Nov. 1. Seventh-place Anaheim is 4-9-4 since then, and the Kings are just two points behind the Ducks at the bottom of the Pacific Division standings.
The Ducks beat the Kings 4-2 on Dec. 2 in the Southern California clubs’ first derby of the season. Both matchups have featured a minimum of the heavy hitting and nasty play for which this rivalry is sometimes known, although Los Angeles’ Kurtis MacDermid fought Anaheim’s Nicolas Deslauriers in this edition.
The Kings got the opening goal when Luff swooped in on a loose rebound of Toffoli’s shot in Gibson’s crease and scored his first goal in nine appearances this season.
Carter scored from a sharp angle early in the second period immediately after Adam Henrique took a holding penalty to create a two-man advantage for the Kings.
Quick’s bid for his first shutout since Jan. 5 ended when the Ducks finally connected with a sharp sequence of power-play passes culminating in a shot by Grant, who got his third goal in two games against the Kings this season.
Quick finished strong, making a handful of sharp saves in his ninth win of the season.
NOTES: Before the game, Anaheim assigned D Brendan Guhle to its AHL affiliate in San Diego. … Los Angeles scratched LW Nikolai Prokhorkin for the second straight game. The 26-year-old NHL rookie took a hit to the head in Calgary last weekend. … Anaheim scratched D Michael Del Zotto and C Devin Shore.
UP NEXT
Kings: Visit the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
Ducks: Host the New York Rangers on Saturday before a four-game East Coast trip stretching to Christmas.
