Randy Jones had a goal and an assist in his debut with Los Angeles, and the Kings beat Carolina 5-2 last night to extend the Hurricanes' winless streak to 13.
Wayne Simmonds and former Hurricane Justin Williams each added a goal and an assist, Ryan Smyth and Jarret Stoll also scored and Anze Kopitar had an assist for his NHL-leading 29th point. The Kings scored three third-period goals and snapped their two-game losing streak.
Tuomo Ruutu scored twice for Carolina, and tied the score at 2-2 with just under 16 minutes remaining on a snap shot from the left circle. About 2½ minutes later, Jones took a pretty across-the-goal feed from Williams and tapped it past goalie Manny Legace to put the Kings ahead to stay.
For Carolina, it was yet another excruciating loss in a season already full of them. The Hurricanes, playing their first full game without injured franchise goalie Cam Ward, appeared to recover after going more than 18 minutes between shots on goal, but were held to fewer than three goals for the eighth consecutive game and dropped their seventh straight in regulation.
The Hurricanes (0-10-3 in their past 13) have seven points in 17 games. They're on their longest slide since moving to North Carolina and are one winless game from matching the team record of 14 straight (0-8-6) set in 1992 when they were in Hartford.
Backup goalie Erik Ersberg had 22 saves in his second start and first appearance in nearly a month for the Kings. At one point early in the second period, they had as many goals (two) as Carolina had shots and weren't whistled for a penalty until they were up 2-0.
Legace stopped 26 shots in his first start with Carolina. He was playing for the AHL's Chicago Wolves when the Hurricanes signed him two days earlier to replace Ward, who will miss about four weeks after suffering a deep cut to his left leg in last week's loss at Columbus.
It didn't take the Kings long to welcome the veteran goalie back to the NHL -- or to put the Hurricanes in yet another deficit.
Smyth made the score 1-0 about 3½ minutes in by backhanding the rebound of Brown's shot past a sprawled Legace and into an uncovered net for his ninth goal. It was the quickest goal allowed by Carolina this year.
Stoll's goal came three minutes into the second when he worked his way from the corner to the net and tipped the puck past Legace.
That was plenty of offense against the punchless Hurricanes, who didn't put a puck on net during the final 15½ minutes of the first. They didn't hit double figures on the shot chart until there were about 6 minutes left in the second, about 1½ minutes before Ruutu's first goal.
Los Angeles 1 1 3 -- 5
Carolina 0 1 1 -- 2
First Period--1, Los Angeles, Smyth 9 (Brown, Kopitar), 3:31 (pp).
Second Period--2, Los Angeles, Stoll 5 (R.Jones, Simmonds), 2:01. 3, Carolina, Ruutu 3 (Brind'Amour, Samsonov), 15:25.
Third Period--4, Carolina, Ruutu 4 (Whitney, Alberts), 4:03. 5, Los Angeles, R.Jones 1 (Williams, Frolov), 6:41 (pp). 6, Los Angeles, Simmonds 5 (Frolov, Handzus), 10:05. 7, Los Angeles, Williams 5 (Smyth, Kopitar), 18:19 (en).
Shots on Goal--Los Angeles 13-7-11--31. Carolina 2-11-11--24. Goalies--Los Angeles, Ersberg. Carolina, Legace.
A--13,510 (18,680). T--2:17.
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