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Oilers escape with shootout win over Kings

Dec 6, 2008 - 7:53 AM By Jonathan Raber PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Ales Hemsky scored the decisive goal in the third round of the shootout as the Edmonton Oilers escaped with a 5-4 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Friday.

After Marc-Antoine Pouliot beat Los Angeles goaltender Jason LaBarbera in the second round, Patrick O'Sullivan knotted the bonus format by firing a snap shot past Edmonton netminder Mathieu Garon, who made 32 saves.

"I was pretty happy how (Garon) handled the first (two shots)," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "I thought that (the Kings) would have to put a pretty good shot on him to get a goal, and they did on the third one.

"But both Pouliot and Hemsky have good moves, too."

Hemsky guided the Oilers to their second straight win by lifting a backhander past LaBarbera's stick side, nearly the exact same spot in which Pouliot tallied.

Pouliot, captain Ethan Moreau and Andrew Cogliano all tallied in the first period to give the Oilers a 3-0 advantage.

"Sometimes when you're up three goals, (you feel) you're supposed to win those games," Garon said of his team's first-period advantage. "Tonight, we put ourselves in trouble, but we bounced back in the third. Now we know these things can happen."

An earthquake ripped through the area of the Staples Center during the first intermission but did not cause any damage or disrupt play. The 5.5 rumble appeared to wake Los Angeles as the team scored four unanswered goals in the first 10:24 of the second session to seize the advantage.

"We came in (to the locker room) and said, 'There's a lot of game left,'" Kings captain Dustin Brown said. "We didn't really feel that we played that bad of a period to be down 3-0.

"I think that showed in the second period, when we came out and stuck to our game plan and put the work in and got rewarded."

Michal Handzus and Anze Kopitar started the scoring in the early minutes of the second before former Oiler Jarret Stoll and Alexander Frolov erased the deficit with power-play tallies.

"We played a heck of a game in the first two periods," Kings coach Terry Murray said. "We scored four goals in the second period - what am I going to change?"

Edmonton, which had yet to commit a penalty over the initial 26 minutes of action, got itself into trouble by committing a pair of infractions.

With Shawn Horcoff in the box for high-sticking, Frolov received a pass behind the net and dished the puck through the slot to Stoll, who ripped a snap shot from the right faceoff circle over the left shoulder of Garon at 7:02 to even the game at 3-3.

Penner was whistled for tripping 3:14 later, and Frolov wasted little time putting the Kings ahead.

Garon made the save on a shot from the blue line but could not control the rebound as a battle for the puck ensued in front of the net. Frolov finally got a handle on it and slid it into a wide-open net eight seconds into the power play.

"I don't know what happened, but it was a totally different game," Garon said. "First period, we were all over them. In the second, they came out really strong, scoring an early goal. But we came back in the third and played real good."

The Oilers did not back down, storming back to even things 8:23 into the third.

Horcoff received a pass from Hemsky and wristed a shot from the bottom of the right circle. Jockeying for position on the doorstep, Penner tipped the puck past LaBarbera for his sixth goal of the season.

Edmonton blitzed Erik Ersberg from the start, victimizing the Swedish netminder for three goals on just 13 shots in the opening period. LaBarbera entered at the start of the second and finished with 30 saves.

"Ersberg didn't have it tonight, and it ends up 3-0 at the end of the first period because of not stopping the puck," Murray said. "I really liked the way we came out and started the game. It was a great start, a perfect start, with all kinds of play in the offensive zone. Knowing how to get the win is a part we have to work on."