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March 23, 2011

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Home » Sports » Ice Hockey

Kings castle Flames to improve playoff hopes

THE Los Angeles Kings earned a small amount of breathing space in the jam-packed Western Conference playoff race with a nail-biting 2-1 shootout victory over the Calgary Flames on Monday.

Jarret Stoll scored in regulation and one of his team's two conversions during the shootout while goaltender Jonathan Quick made 27 saves and forced two shootout misses from Calgary to move the Kings into sole possession of fifth place in the West, one point behind Phoenix.

Anze Kopitar netted the decisive shootout score with a cheeky shot that he nonchalantly slid through the legs of Calgary goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff.

"I didn't know (where I was going to shoot) off the bat. I tried the shot and it's a good thing it worked for me," Kopitar told reporters. "We knew how big this game was. We just want to keep this pace up and go from there."

Despite their fifth loss in six games, the Flames (37-27-11) earned a point and are in a three-way tie for eighth in the conference and just three points behind Los Angeles (41-26-6).

Olli Jokinen forced overtime for Calgary with his game-tying goal at 15:13 in the third, a little more than a minute after Stoll's tally, but the visitors could not break through during overtime and missed their last two attempts in the shootout.

Kiprusoff made 26 saves in the loss to rebound from a forgettable performance one day earlier when he was pulled after allowing three goals on five shots to the Anaheim Ducks.

With his latest triumph, Quick improved to 8-0 this season in shootouts.

"He's very athletic and a very flexible guy," Stoll said of his teammate. "You can tell when guys are going in on him that he's reading the sot. He gives us confidence."

In Detroit, the Pittsburgh Penguins blew a four-goal lead before pulling out a 5-4 victory following a shootout against the Detroit Red Wings.

Pascal Dupuis had two goals and an assist to help Pittsburgh build its big lead. Tyler Kennedy put the Penguins ahead 4-0 at 13:16 of the second period, ending Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard's night.

Henrik Zetterberg started Detroit's comeback with 2:19 left in the second, Valtteri Filppula had a goal early in the third, and Danny Cleary and Mike Modano scored 2:21 apart midway through the period to make it 4-4.

Pittsburgh's James Neal scored the only goal in the shootout, and Brent Johnson stopped 37 shots for the Penguins.





 

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