• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Frolov, Kings hold off Coyotes

Nov 19, 2006 - 12:31 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- This time, Alexander Frolov and the Los Angeles Kings didn't cave in.

Frolov had two goals and an assist and Craig Conroy netted the decisive tally as the Kings posted a 5-3 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.

Scott Thornton added an empty-net goal and an assist and defenseman Rob Blake also tallied for Los Angeles, which for the second straight game allowed an opponent to score three straight times after taking an early lead.

On Thursday, Los Angeles had a 3-1 lead midway through the third period before allowing three goals in a span of 3:10 in a 4-3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers.

On Saturday, the Kings were up 3-0 when they allowed goals 43 seconds apart by Georges Laraque and Yanic Perreault with less than two minutes left in the second period.

Oleg Saprykin tallied 6 1/2 minutes into the third session to tie the game at 3-3, but Conroy answered with a power-play goal 2 1/2 minutes later. He received a pass from defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, took two steps in and blasted the puck above the right pad of goaltender Curtis Joseph.

"You pass all game, eventually you've got to shoot one," Conroy said. "Usually I don't shoot it so I just stepped in and there was a nice screen in front. I tried to shoot it short side and boy I was ever happy to see one go in. We needed it, especially after losing the 3-0 lead. It could've been a long few days if we had a three-goal lead again and let it go."

Frolov scored the game's initial goal in the first period with a man advantage. He added a shorthanded tally with 13 minutes left in the second period when he stole the puck near the center line, skated in and wristed a shot on the short side of netminder David LeNeveu.

"He's got that little bit of swagger and confidence in his game, especially right now. ...he's feeling it," Conroy said of Frolov. "There's no doubt about it. He feels like every time it's on his stick, it's got a chance to go in."

It was the third straight game in which Frolov had posted two tallies.

"It's great fun," Frolov said. "Two goals in the last three games is pretty good for me. I'm just trying to shoot more. Every chance I get, if there's a shooting chance, I try to take the shot. It's much better when we win. Bottom line, we won. These were two important points for us."

After Frolov's second goal, LeNeveu immediately was lifted from the game by coach Wayne Gretzky and replaced by Joseph. LeNeveu allowed three goals on 16 shots while Joseph stopped 21 shots.

"He's (LeNeveu) not getting the job done," Gretzky said. "It's as simple as that. This game is dictated by wins and losses. I know he's a better goalie than he's shown, but he just hasn't gotten it done for us."

Thornton's goal came with 20 seconds remaining.

Dan Cloutier stopped 36 shots for the Kings, who have beaten the Coyotes 14 of their last 15 times in Los Angeles.

"Our power play was very special tonight," Kings coach Marc Crawford said. "We scored one in every period and if you can do that you are going to win a lot of hockey games."