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O'Sullivan, LaBarbera lead Kings to fourth straight win

Oct 28, 2007 - 6:09 AM By Craig Shultz PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Patrick O'Sullivan and Jason LaBarbera helped the Los Angeles Kings win their fourth game in a row for the first time since March 2006.

O'Sullivan scored two goals and LaBarbera made a season-high 33 saves as the Kings defeated the Edmonton Oilers, 4-1, on Saturday night.

Ladislav Nagy and Anze Kopitar also tallied for Los Angeles, which had not won four consecutive games since taking five straight from February 11-March 7, 2006.

LaBarbera has been in goal for in all four wins, allowing just four tallies during the run.

"We had a great goaltending performance tonight from Jason," Kings coach Marc Crawford said. "He deserves as much credit as anybody on the team. We got some strong performances from other people, but he was at a different level than our team was tonight, and we definitely needed that in the third period."

The Kings have rebounded nicely from a slow start, winning five of their last six games.

"The beginning of the year, we didn't trust each other and trust ourselves. I think we learned a lot from that," LaBarbera said. "Hopefully, we can just build off that losing streak at the beginning of the year and build on it."

"It's funny how things go," O'Sullivan added. "Even after the start we had, we knew that wasn't our team, we knew what we were capable of doing. We stuck to our guns. You start to question yourself when you're losing. (LaBarbera) is just playing unbelievable for us right now. He is a good goalie, I played with him last year and I know what he's capable of doing."

After Edmonton went ahead late in the first period, Los Angeles tied the game at 1-1 just 90 seconds later. After a faceoff in the Kings' zone, O'Sullivan chipped the puck past Oilers defenseman Denis Grebeshkov near the blue line and skated alone down the right wing before firing a slap shot by goaltender Dwayne Roloson from the faceoff circle.

"Anytime you get scored on, you need to answer back," LaBarbera said. "In the past, we haven't been able to do that. That's another thing we're doing a good job on - we get scored on and we come right back."

Nagy put Los Angeles ahead to stay at 12:21 of the second period. After forcing a turnover in the offensive zone, Nagy pushed the puck through a crowd and sent a backhander past Roloson's stick.

Kopitar provided some insurance on an unlikely play. The Slovenian carried the puck into the zone and was forced wide by the defense, but he fired on odd-angle shot that hit the side of the net, bounced off Roloson's pad and in to make it 3-1 with 4:01 left in the middle session.

"Whenever your team is playing well, you're going to score some timely goals, and we did score some timely goals tonight," Crawford said.

O'Sullivan sealed the victory and capped his two-goal performance with 3:57 remaining in the third.

"The first one was a 2-on-1," O'Sullivan said of his tallies. "(Nagy) did a good job of going to the net, the (defenseman) went with him. I just tried to shoot as hard as I could. I tried to hit the net and it got through.

"The second one was a good pass by (Kyle) Calder. I was going to the net, kind of missed the puck at first, had to go toward the corner to get it and turned around and shot. Pretty lucky, I think."

Edmonton opened the scoring when Jarret Stoll scored on the power play at 16:40 of the first period. He took a cross-ice pass from Ales Hemsky and beat LaBarbera from the left circle.

It was the Oilers' first power-play goal on the road this season and snapped an 18-game drought for Stoll.

"I needed that. Hopefully, my game can pick up now and take off a little bit," Stoll said. "A win would have been nice, too.

"(I had) an opening on the side. (Hemsky) usually makes those passes through the seam. I just got a lot of wood on it and put it under his arm."

Edmonton has struggled away from Rexall Place , going just 1-5-0 on the road this season.

"We just have to find a way to get the wins," Stoll said. "It doesn't matter if it's home or away, we have to do it. We just have to find way to get the points somehow."

Roloson stopped 27 of the 31 shots he faced. The 38-year-old has lost three of his last four starts, surrendering 15 goals over that stretch.

"We again created a lot offensively, we just didn't capitalize," Stoll said. "We made three or four mistakes, and (they got) three or four goals. It's kind of the same storyline of a lot of our games this year. You get 35 shots, that's pretty darn good. We have to find more ways to get more than one goal on 35 shots."

Oilers coach Craig MacTavish agreed with Stoll.

"It was a game that was a real cross-section of what we've gone through the first 10 games," MacTavish said. "At the end of the game, you move the puck pretty well, you put yourself in position to score, and you don't."