The Canucks must have been watching the Washington-Montreal game that preceded their tilt with the Kings on Wednesday, as they too scored 4 3rd period goals to down the upstart LA Kings and even their Western Conference series at 2 games apiece.
The Kings’ powerplay continued to be effective early, as Drew Doughty scored his 2nd goal of the playoffs with a powerplay goal in the first, crashing the net and finding a loose puck that he wasted no time in burying in the back of the cage to put the Kings up 1-0. After Christian Ehrhoff evened the game in the 2nd with a powerplay tally of his own, LA captain Dustin Brown put the Kings back on top with a beautiful one timer. After an offensive zone faceoff was scrummed, Brown found space in the high slot and took a touch pass from Freddie Modin that he fired to the back side of Roberto Luongo who was sliding across the crease.
Veteran Pavol Demitra evened the game at 2-2 late in the 2nd, beating Jonathan Quick with a low snapshot after causing a turnover in the neutral zone and sneaking behind the Kings’ defense. Anze Kopitar gave the Kings a 3-2 lead to take into the 3rd with his deflection of Wayne Simmonds’ centering pass that beat Luey upstairs.
In the 3rd, though, Vancouver turned on the jets, outshooting the Kings 17-8 in the period, and netting 4 goals. Mikael Samuelsson got things started with his redirect off Daniel Sedin’s pass, and Sami Salo scored a powerplay goal five minutes later to give the Canucks their first lead of the night. Wayne Simmonds tied the game 62 seconds later, bringing the Staples Center to their feet with a great effort, beating Shane O’Brien to the front of the net and slapping a one timer past Luongo.
The Sedin twins, who had been quiet for most of the night, got into the act with a beautiful give and go through the neutral zone with less than 3 minutes left to play. Henrik dished it to Daniel as they entered the LA zone, and Danny gave it right back to him. The NHL scoring champ then finessed a beautiful shot through Jonathan Quick and put Vancouver on top for good. Ryan Kesler iced the game with an empty netter scored with less than 20 seconds left to play, and the series now heads back to Canada tied at 2-2.