With both home teams trailing in their series, the Wild and Kings had their work cut out for them Thursday night.
The Wild came into the Xcel Energy Center Thursday night with all the momentum. It started the moment the puck dropped.
A little over three minutes into the game, defenseman Jared Spurgeon put his slapshot past Vezina Award finalist Semyon Varlamov for the first goal of the game. The Wild would out shoot the Avalanche 14-3 in the opening period.
The momentum and shots would continue until Charlie Coyle scored a backhander on the power play, after a Gabriel Landeskog hooking penalty.
“I didn’t know where it went either. I don’t think anyone did, and I just happened to look and it was right on my stick,” said Coyle, who has three goals in the series. “I’ll take it. Right place, right time, and it ended up being a big goal for us, so I’ll take it.”
The Avalanche would answer on a Ryan O’Reilly slapshot of his own, but it was not enough. Though two periods the Wild out shot the Avalanche 25-7.
To make matters worse the Avalanche only got five shots in the final period, totaling a staggering 12 shots. It was a fairly easy night for Darcy Kuemper, who moves to 2-0 since replacing Ilya Bryzgalov.
“The first part of the game was what didn’t happen and what we didn’t do,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “We were passive and we can’t afford to be passive in a game like this.”
The Los Angeles Kings on the other hand were in a must win game. Down 3-0 in the series, it was a must win at the Staples Center Thursday night.
It took four minutes for Marian Gaborik to give the Kings the early advantage. They would hold on to the lead until 8 seconds left, when James Sheppard beat Kings goalie Jonathan Quick. With the game tied going into intermission there was an uneasiness in the air.
It didn’t take long to kill that feeling again. After a Raffi Torres boarding penalty, Justin Williams converted his shot on the power play to give the Kings the lead.
Matt Nieto would tie the back and forth game with a wrist shot of his own five minutes later.
The Kings would open the flood gate on Niemi after that goal.
With a little under four minutes to play in the second period, Justin Williams tipped in his second goal of the period in front of Antti Niemi. With 59 seconds left in the period Tyler Toffoli added the insurance goal, and the Kings took a 4-2 lead going into the second intermission.
“We’re certainly happy we got the win, but we feel we have a long way to go obviously,” Williams said. “We’re going take another step in San Jose and it is going to be a tough one.”
34 seconds into the final period Marian Gaborik wristed his shot past Niemi, and that was all she wrote for his night.
The Sharks put in backup Alex Stalock for the final peroid. Stalock would make all four saves, and even Joe Pavelski added a PPG to stop the bleeding.
It wasn’t enough as Dustin Brown added an empty net goal to make the final 6-3 in favor of the Kings.
“I didn’t like our net play, simple as that,” Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. “When I say net play, I don’t mean our goaltender. I better make that really clear. I’m not talking about our goaltender. I’m talking about the goaltender, the d-men, the forwards down low and the secondary chances we gave up.”
The Sharks still have a stranglehold on the series up 3-1 and going back to San Jose.
Game 5 is back at the SAP Center Saturday Night 10pm EST NBCSN/CBC
photo credit: getty images gif:sohockeyeh