LA Kings vs. Blues: Recap, three stars, quotes in amazing 4-3 OT win

The LA Kings came back from a three-goal deficit to top the St. Louis Blues in overtime on Saturday night.

In what looked like another lost game, as the St. Louis Blues grabbed a 3-0 with 8:55 left in the first period, the LA Kings stormed back to stun the visitors in overtime on Saturday. Anze Kopitar scored two goals in the contest, including one late in the first period to keep some hope alive.

The LA Kings captain secured his second goal just 1:41 into the middle frame, a powerplay goal on a re-direction from Drew Doughty and off Alex Iafallo‘s stick that left a wide-open net for Kopitar on the right side. And as the final seconds ticked away in the second period, Kopitar held the puck behind the Blues net, found Matt Luff in front, who fired a one-timer past Jordan Binnington to even the score.

The third period went scoreless, and the two teams were set for overtime for the second consecutive night. The Blues were caught with two guys behind the LA Kings defensemen in their own zone with the puck going the other way. Gabe Vilardi led a 3-on-1, finding Adrian Kempe at the last second, who fired the overtime winner into the back of the net.

LA Kings Three Stars

3 stars

Anze Kopitar: two goals and three points and leads the team with 28 total points

2 stars

Matt Luff: scored the game-tying goal late in the second period

1 star

Gabe Vilardi: how about that pass to Kempe on the overtime winner?

Postgame Quotes

Anze Kopitar on the positional changes on the powerplay lately

It’s a powerplay that it’s pretty confident right now. We’ve been able to get on the board, and then sometimes we get caught in different spots, but everybody on the ice knows what the job is. So we’ve been able to kind of throw different looks at it each and every night. And we’ve been successful so far.

Todd McLellan on the turning point of the game

I think the turning point was the intermission in the first period when we decided that we couldn’t play a track meet style game against that team, and we have to get back to playing the type of game right now that suits our team. There’s a tendency to want to go and just open it up. I don’t blame the players for wanting that, but for us to have success, we got to play tight. We got to play along the boards. We’ve got to check our way to wins, and early in the first, well throughout the first, it was just to track me – it was back and forth. [It was] probably exciting to watch but not very productive for the black and silver team tonight.

McLellan on if Kopitar willed this team to victory

I think that’s fair to say. Now no one man does it all by himself, but when your top player or players decide that they got to reel the game back in and do it the right way, it’s real easy to follow. It doesn’t always produce results, but you have no choice but to follow. You can’t go off on your own program. I don’t care who you are. When when the alphas decide to play the right way, everybody else follows, and that’s tremendous leadership shown by him and a few others tonight.

On taking three-of-four points from St. Louis

Well, you know, talking big picture right now, we get three out of four, but they also got two out of four. It stings. Yesterday’s game still stings because I think it’s something we could closeout. You might say that the hockey gods weren’t on our side last night, but they were tonight, and I guess we’ll take the three or four and move on. And we’ve got a tough series coming up against the rival. We didn’t play real well against them last time, and we’ll see where that takes us now.

LA Kings Schedule

The LA Kings will face the Ducks at the Honda Center for a two-game set beginning Monday at 7 pm PT.