LOS ANGELES — A pair of Pacific Division rivals needed a pregame triage before the San Jose Sharks’ narrow victory over the Kings, 4-3, in overtime on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
The Kings were missing captain Anže Kopitar (lower-body injury), Corey Perry (personal), Trevor Moore (upper-body injury) and Joel Armia (upper-body injury) from a forward group already left short by the trade of Phillip Danault. Wednesday would have marked Kopitar’s 100th and final regular-season meeting with San Jose.
In place of those four absent attackers, who had a combined 3,998 games of NHL experience, skated Jeff Malott, Andre Lee, Taylor Ward and seventh defenseman Jacob Moverare. That quartet was decidedly less seasoned with 160 combined appearances.
San Jose was without half a dozen players, most notably forward Will Smith. The extra point the Sharks collected separated them from the Kings in the standings, with both squads in a wild-card spot.
“They’re a great team. I know they’re injured. So are we. They have a great goalie in net. So do we,” Sharks center Macklin Celebrini said.
He added: “We’ve battled with them throughout the year, and those games mean a lot, battling against teams in your division … that was a huge win.”
The Kings have won just four of their past 13 games. San Jose has prevailed in five of its last six outings, including Tuesday’s win over Columbus. The Sharks took the season series, with each of the three games against the Kings decided by one goal and two of them going beyond 60 minutes.
Alex Turcotte and Kevin Fiala assisted on each other’s goals for the Kings. Alex Laferriere also scored and Joel Edmundson had two assists. Darcy Kuemper made 24 saves.
Celebrini burst forth with a tying goal, set up the overtime game-winner by William Eklund, engineered a tally for former King Tyler Toffoli and was on the ice for Adam Gaudette’s marker. Yaroslav Askarov stopped 23 shots.
In overtime, Quinton Byfield was all alone with Askarov but couldn’t seal the deal early.
That opened the door for Celebrini to force a turnover, lead a two-on-one rush and create a no-doubt winner for Eklund with 1:52 on the OT clock.
As 2:10 remained in regulation, the Kings finagled their first lead of the night, only to hand it back 1:04 later. San Jose struck with its goalie pulled, meaning the Sharks had no five-on-five goals on Wednesday.
Celebrini hit the zone with speed, found quiet ice behind the play and got the puck back to weave through five adversaries and deliver a laser that guaranteed the Sharks at least one point.
“He just danced that (defender), you can’t say enough about this guy,” Eklund said.
Edmundson, who had a goal disallowed earlier, found a loose puck and cranked a slap shot. It struck defender Mario Ferraro before being redirected home by Laferriere to put the Kings ahead, 3-2.
The Kings had nearly pulled ahead with 7:51 to play.
The exact same five players were on the ice as the Kings’ first two goals – Turcotte, Fiala, Andrei Kuzmenko, Brandt Clarke and Edmundson – and they appeared to score a greasy one. Edmundson was pushed from behind as the puck propelled forward off of him. Upon video review, it was determined he effectively batted the puck in with his glove.
“I got mauled from behind and as I was going down, the puck just hit my glove. I actually didn’t even know where the puck was, so it wasn’t intentional,” Edmundson said. “I thought it would have counted. It’s not the reason we lost, we got it right back. We just had to close it out.”
San Jose gained a 2-1 edge with its second power-play goal of the evening at 5:38 but the Kings equalized in short order, 62 seconds later.
An attempt off the end boards left Turcotte to contend with two Sharks in front. He won the battle and slid the puck to Fiala for his 16th goal, giving him sole possession of the team lead.
The Sharks had gone up off some more Celebrini magic, though after breaking down the defense he ultimately did not earn an assist on Gaudette’s successful tip of Timothy Liljegren’s shot.
Neither team hit the twine in the first period but the two sides swapped goals in the second.
The Kings tied the score at the 11:34 mark off a set play imagined by Kuzmenko. Clarke, whose splits and underlying numbers were dominant again, set up Fiala for two shot attempts, the second of which generated a rebound and created a scramble. Turcotte found the puck and popped in his third goal of the season.
“(Kuzmenko) is very creative. He talks a lot. He wants to get better. He wants to do more. I like his energy and his excitement,” said Fiala, who also lauded Turcotte’s progress.
Though the Kings had the game’s first two power plays, it was the Sharks’ man-advantage unit opening the scoring, 4:20 into the middle frame.
Nearly 40 seconds of sustained pressure culminated in a slam-dunk goal for Toffoli. Celebrini’s heave from the right point created a rebound for Alex Wennberg. He made a no-look pass between his legs and Laferriere’s, finding the 2014 Stanley Cup champ at the back post.
Celebrini has recorded a point on 67 of San Jose’s 134 goals and has a 12-game scoring streak.
Next up, the undermanned Kings head north for back-to-back games in Winnipeg on Friday and Edmonton on Saturday.