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Jokinen's hat trick helps Coyotes rout Kings

Feb 22, 2009 - 12:49 AM LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Olli Jokinen recorded his first hat trick of the season and went over 500 career points, leading the Phoenix Coyotes to a 6-3 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.

Viktor Tikhonov chipped in a goal and an assist and Martin Hanzal added a pair of helpers for the Coyotes, who have won back-to-back games for the first time this month.

"It was a big win for us," Phoenix coach Wayne Gretzky said. "We came into a place where this is one of the hotter teams in the NHL right now. We knew it was going to be a tough game. Got off to a good start, guys played really hard. We did a lot of good things that gets us back in the (playoff) race."

David Hale and Mikkel Boedker also scored for Phoenix, which had managed just 20 goals while winning one of 10 from January 27-February 16 but has now totaled 10 in the last two contests.

"I thought it was maybe the best we've played all season as far as getting traffic to the net," Gretzky said. "It was a good team effort in the sense of battling for loose pucks, battling for opportunities to get chances."

Tikhonov found the net in both games and Jokinen, who had not scored since January 20, chipped in an assist against the Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday before breaking through on Saturday.

"No month without a goal for me," Jokinen said. "The bottom line is I am playing with good players and I am getting a lot of chances. It's good to score, but more important to get two points and stay in this playoff race."

Trailing, 2-1, in the second period, Jokinen and Tikhonov scored within 51 seconds of each other to put Phoenix on top. Jokinen increased the lead to 4-2 five minutes later with his 19th goal of the season and the 500th point of his career.

"I think we started the game pretty well," Jokinen said. "After they scored their second goal we start putting the puck deep and cycling really good. We got three more goals in their second goal. It was a good road game for us."

"We talked about that a lot about keeping things simple and doing the little things," Tikhonov said. "Keep the puck in their corners and chances will present themselves. It was nothing fancy."

Jokinen added an unassisted empty-net goal late in the third to complete the hat trick.

Alexander Frolov scored his 25th goal of the season in the first and Dustin Brown notched his 23rd in the second for Los Angeles, which has allowed 20 goals over its last four games.

"Well it certainly looks like we were not ready with managing the puck here today," Kings coach Terry Murray said. "The goals that happened are turnovers, giveaways, takeaways and it's unfortunate because that was just a huge game for us. That's one of those four-pointers that you must win to keep yourself in a good position."

Ilya Bryzgalov made 30 saves for the Coyotes while rookie Jon Quick was victimized for five goals on 28 shots for the Kings.