LA KIngs Andreas Athanasiou

Photo Credit: LA Kings Twitter

Win of the year, so far? Could be. The LA Kings grabbed a huge 3-2 overtime win in Boston on Monday night one week after getting blown out 7-0 against these same Bruins in Los Angeles.

GOAL BREAKDOWN:

BOS: Trent Frederic (4), Assists: Craig Smith (14), Charlie Coyle (16)

LAK: Blake Lizotte (8), Assists: Carl Grundstrom (4), Olli Maatta (3)

BOS: Craig Smith (11), Assists: Mike Reilly (10), Charlie Coyle (17)

LAK: Trevor Moore (10), Assists: Arthur Kaliyev (9), Sean Durzi (14)

LAK: Andreas Athanasiou (8), Unassisted

1. Cal Petersen stood on his head

Getting back-to-back starts, I would point to one specific save on Monday from Cal Petersen, but he was great all night. Boston came out of the gate much like they did last week, controlling the pace of play and opening the scoring on Trent Frederic’s fourth goal of the season. Blake Lizotte would even the score 1:09 later.

Into the third period and trailing 2-1, Petersen made three jaw-dropping saves that would be ones to remember if the Kings came back to win the game.

Video or it didn’t happen:

In all, the 27-year-old stopped 30-of-32 shots in a game where the Kings were looking for payback:

“We came in with something to prove to show that we can play with the big boys,” Petersen said after the game. “It’s huge for our confidence, but we were looking for revenge.

“Now that we’ve figured out how to win in these situations, or need to come back, I don’t think anybody panics. Everyone knows their job, what we need to do & it all comes down to execution. I think there’s a lot of belief in each other right now.”

2. Trevor Moore ties it late

I can’t stress the importance of Phillip Danault‘s faceoff win with under 30 seconds remaining in regulation. With the goalie pulled and trailing by one, Kopitar retrieved the puck and cycled it to Sean Durzi at the point, who dished it to Arthur Kaliyev above the right dot.

Kaliyev fired a blast on net that hit some traffic and landed right in front of the net for Trevor Moore, who buried home the game-tying goal with 25.2 seconds left.

Despite no Arvidsson in this one, the MA(thansiou)D line continues to produce.

“It was contested very hard by both teams, a lot of board work, wall work, heavy lifting for both teams,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said in his first game back. “It’s good for our team to play in that, really good for our team to play in it, stick with it and we found a way to get two in the last few minutes of the game. We used every minute we had, which was important.”

3. Statement win for LA Kings in Boston

I think most people would have been satisfied with a hard-earned point in Boston, especially considering the Kings were going to be without Adrian Kempe for the first four minutes, should the extra period gone that long. Kempe and former LA King Derek Forbort dropped the gloves after the final horn, both serving double minors.

At any rate, after Boston had a couple of good looks in the o-zone, Andreas Athanasiou found the puck and an open sheet of ice in front of him, beating Linus Ullmark for the game-winner.

“Shows the character we have in the room. We stick with it, we stick up for each other. It’s a lot of fun right now,” Athanasiou said.

This is one of those wins that last year’s squad probably doesn’t pull out, but it speaks volumes how far this team has come in the last calendar year. Along with Viktor Arvidsson‘s overtime winner and Athanasiou’s, the Kings have ripped off a couple of statement games, especially this one at TD Garden against a very good opponent.

The LA Kings are off for a couple of days before hosting the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.

Of importance, we’ll keep tabs on the health of Mikey Anderson, who left the game in the first period after he violently met Brad Marchand along the sideboards. The Kings’ young defenseman was slow to get up, and he did return to the game briefly before exiting again.

With Viktor Arvidsson and Brendan Lemieux out of the lineup and now potentially Anderson, the Kings can’t afford a serious injury at this stage of the season.

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