STATS     GAME REPORTS Game Summary Event Summary Faceoffs Report Full Play-by-Play TOI - Colorado TOI - Los Angeles Roster Report Shot Report

Print

+ Click for larger photo

Photo Gallery   Game Highlights    Quote Sheet

LOS ANGELES (AP) -Ryan Smyth had two goals and Milan Hejduk scored his sixth goal in six games, leading the Colorado Avalanche to a 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night.

David Jones scored his first of the season for the Avalanche, who have received goals from a league-high 15 different players through the first 1 1/2 weeks of the season. Paul Stastny had two assists, giving the Smyth-Stastny-Hejduk line a combined total of 11 goals and 24 points.

Peter Budaj made 26 saves for his first victory this season, after coming in 0-3 with a 4.38 goals-against average and a save percentage of .824.

Oscar Moller and defenseman Drew Doughty each scored their first NHL goals for the Kings. Moller also assisted on a goal by Patrick O'Sullivan, which gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead at 3:02 of the second period.

Doughty, the second overall pick in the June draft, was badly beaten by Smyth as the 14-year veteran left wing deftly stickhandled past him in the left circle and flipped his second goal of the game over Jason LaBarbera's glove at 16:32 of the period for a 4-2 Colorado lead.

But Doughty came back and cut the deficit to 4-3 with 17:35 left in regulation. He skated the puck into the zone and took a 15-foot wrist shot from the left circle that went through the legs of defenseman John-Michael Liles and past goalie Budaj's stick.

O'Sullivan scored on a short backhander, after Budaj stopped him from point blank range and thwarted Jarret Stoll's rebound attempt. The Avalanche tied it at 2-2 just 59 seconds later, as Kings center Michal Handzus fanned on a pass deep in his zone and put it right on Hejduk's stick for a short wrist shot past LaBarbera.

Another giveaway by the Kings in their zone led to Jones' goal, which came on a 35-foot slap shot from the slot that beat LaBarbera to the glove side and put Colorado ahead 3-2 at 5:16 of the second.

The Avalanche had only one shot on net until the 11:28 mark of the game, when Smyth scored on a one-timer from 15 feet in the slot after getting a touch pass from Stastny.

Los Angeles took a 1-0 lead at 6:19 when Moller got the puck from Alexander Frolov along the goal line to the left of the net and took a sharp-angle wrist shot that found a crack of daylight between Budaj's skates as the goalie hugged the post. The goal came with 15 seconds left on Smyth's penalty for hooking Matt Greene.

Notes: Colorado has allowed at least one power play goal in each of its first six games, and has given up eight in 27 short-handed situations altogether. By contrast, Los Angeles has thwarted all 23 of its opponents' power plays. Last season, the Kings' penalty-killing percentage was the worst in the league at 78.0 percent. ... Moller, who turns 20 years old on Jan. 22, was a second-round pick by the Kings in June 2007. He helped Sweden win a silver medal at the 2008 World Junior Championships.