After being activated earlier today from the injured reserve, Mathieu Garon gets the start in goal tonight. Another fresh face for L.A. is Alyn McCauley, who gets his first start as a King tonight.
Talk about impressive milestones, Rob Blake is playing in his 700th game as a King. The Oilers also have 999 franchise wins going into tonight's game.
Fernando Pisani draws first blood for Edmonton, as he gets a pass from Jarrett Stoll to score a short-handed goal over the shoulder of Garon. Brent Sopel held on the the puck too long, behind the net, as Stoll flips it to a wide open Pisani, who shoots quickly, surprising a rusty Garon.
Dustin Brown is set up by Anze Kopitar to even the score. Brown tips it to Kopitar, who takes it along the boards. He sends a pretty pass to Brown, who buries it past Dwayne Roloson for his tenth goal of the season. With the assist, Kopitar is now tied with Malkin for the rookie scoring lead.
Brian Willsie puts the Kings ahead with a wide-open shot, thanks to a defensive lapse of the Oilers. As time elapsed on the Ales Hemsky penalty, the Kings had good offensive pressure. As they were cycling the puck, the Oilers missed an assignment, leaving Willsie open. Conroy passes the the puck to him, and he finishes it, much to the dismay of the fans in Edmonton.
Scott Thornton gets a huge penalty: 2 minutes for instigating a fight, 5 for fighting and two 10 minute game misconduct, to put the Kings on the PK for seven minutes. That's 27 minutes on penalties, my friends. If I had Scott Thornton on my fantasy club, The Four King Ice Holes, I would be dominating the penalty minutes category. (I've got the second highest in our league now with 337 minutes. 27 would put me over the top. /geek talk)
The Kings are playing well, under the circumstances, but seven minutes of power play time is a lot to play a man down. Daniel Tjarnqvist shoots the puck from the point, and it hits Garon on his glove hand. But he can't hold on, and the puck trickles in, despite Garon sprawling backward to try and keep it out. The goal is reviewed and stands as called. The shoot wasn't very difficult, and probably should've been handled by Garon. But it took a weird bounce, and the Kings find themselves tied at the end of one period.
First period: Kings 2, Oilers 2
The second period was hard for me to follow, as I had to tend to the bathtub being clogged after The Wife gave The Daughter a bath. I spent all period catching parts of action, thanks to Nick Nickson and Darryl Evans.
I missed the first two Oiler goals, but was able to hear Rob Blake's power play goal. Alexander Frolov feeds him a perfect pass to give Blake his seventh of the season. All seven of his goals have been power play goals. Frolov gets some love from Derek Armstrong, as he scores his 18th of the season. 5 and a half minutes later, Sean Avery scores to make it 6-4. I also heard it was Kopitar who set up Avery's goal. If I'm not mistaken, the assist put
Anze up a point on Evgeni Malkin in the rookie scoring race. Of course, Anze has played in seven more games than Evgeni.
The Kings have had three power play goals against the league's best penalty kill. They also have blocked 15 shots the first two periods. McCauley has taken the most face-offs through the first two periods, winning 8 of 14. He has been a nice surprise for L.A. so far this game.
Second period: Kings 5, Oilers 4
Frolov works the puck behind the puck, and is being chased side-to-side behind Roloson. He spots a wide-open Visnovsky. Lubo walks right down the middle and takes the pass from Frolov and shoots it to put the Kings up, 6-4. The Oilers collapse, with everyone looking at the puck, and the defensive mishap costs them. Derek Armstrong gets his third assist of the game. He's played well.
Garon seems to be more focused the later the game goes. He's been under a barrage of shots in the third, and he's been turning them all away.
Alyn McCauley scores an empty-netter to top off the Kings' scoring. In his first game, McCauley has paid instant dividends from Crawford, giving him another weapon in the face-off circle.
It was the fourth time this season that Roloson allowed at least six goals in a game. According to the
Elias Sports Bureau, that equals the number of games in which Roloson allowed six or more goals over his previous six NHL seasons combined, spanning 218 games.
Third period: Kings 7, Oilers 4 
Mateo
Kings overpower the Oilers on the PP 
