Arvedson's two-goal effort sinks Kings
Associated Press
1/9/2004
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Magnus Arvedson is starting to feel comfortable on a line with brothers Daniel and Henrik Sedin.
Arvedson scored Vancouver's first two goals, doubling his season total, and Daniel Sedin also scored to help the Canucks extend the Los Angeles Kings' winless streak to 10 games with a 3-1 victory Thursday night.
``It's taken him a long time to figure out our offense, so it was good to see him get a couple,'' coach Marc Crawford said. ``He looked very good with the Sedins, so I think we will keep him there for a while.''
The victory improved the Canucks' record to 23-11-6-2, best in the Northwest Division.
The Kings learned leading scorer Ziggy Palffy will be out indefinitely because of a dislocated right shoulder that might require season-ending surgery. The injury occurred during Wednesday's 4-4 tie at Anaheim, when he tried to take off on a breakaway in overtime and got tangled up with Mighty Ducks defenseman Todd Simpson.
``Ziggy's a big piece of the puzzle, that's for sure,'' teammate Ian Laperriere said. ``But what are you going to do? We've been doing that for two years now. Nobody can do Ziggy's job, that's obvious. I think he's the most exciting player in the league. But guys have to step up.''
Kings coach Andy Murray, who took a frustrated walk down the tunnel leading back to the bench before addressing reporters, is looking at a long second half of the season if the rest of the team doesn't pick up the scoring slack for Palffy. Murray is taking an optimistic approach.
``We're not going to have him and we've got to find a way to win -- and we plan to do that,'' Murray said. ``We've had our fair share of injuries, but we'll plug somebody into the hole that was created by Ziggy coming out. Our lineup is a good enough lineup that we should be expecting to get the job done. That's why I'm a little bit sour right now -- because we didn't get it done tonight.''
Dan Cloutier made 16 saves and Henrik Sedin had two assists for the Canucks, who extended their road winning streak to six games and are 9-1-1 in their last 11 games outside Vancouver. They beat the Kings in Los Angeles for the third straight time after going 0-10-4 in their previous 14 visits.
Jason Holland spoiled Cloutier's bid for his third shutout in eight games, scoring with 12:44 to play. The Canucks have never shut out the Kings on the road in 99 attempts during the regular season and eight more in the playoffs since entering the NHL in 1970-71.
The Kings are 0-3-6-1 in their last 10 games. They haven't gone more than 10 straight without a victory since the 1981-82 season, when they had a 16-game drought (0-7-9). The last six games of that streak were all ties.
The Kings got an unlucky break on Vancouver's first goal at 7:11 of the opening period, when Henrik Sedin's centering pass from behind the net hopped off Arvedson's stick a few feet from the crease and Los Angeles defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky accidentally poked the puck into his own net trying to clear it away.
Arvedson scored again at 6:16 of the second, converting a rebound of Mattias Ohlund's slap shot from the right point.
``My first goal was lucky. On the second one, I was just trying to screen the goalie and the puck was right there,'' Arvedson said. ``It was one of those kind of goals that I haven't had yet this year. It's good to get two, because it's been a while. But the biggest thing is to win.''
Daniel Sedin made it 3-0 at 17:08 of the period with his fifth goal.
Kings enforcer Sean Avery went off with Vancouver's Todd Bertuzzi for roughing in each of the first two periods. Avery tried to take him off again less than 1 1/2 minutes into the third and succeeded -- but received an extra two minutes for high-sticking.
Avery was quoted in a national magazine saying that Bertuzzi and Canucks teammate Markus Naslund ``have a pretty big chip on their shoulders,'' and that he would choose Vancouver center Matt Cooke if he was given one free punch at any player in the NHL. But there was no trouble between Avery and Cooke.
``I won't talk about that. It's not worth my words,'' Bertuzzi said.
Notes
Palffy, 31, has 16 goals and 25 assists in 35 games this season. He missed five other games with facial injuries after getting hit by a puck while sitting on the bench. ... Bertuzzi, who signed a $28 million, four-year contract extension in October after scoring a career-high 46 goals last season, has three goals in his last 20 games. ... The results of fan balloting for next month's All-Star game were announced, and Bertuzzi had the second-most votesamong Western Conference players -- 448 fewer than Colorado D Rob Blake.
Cheers,
Aquaman