The Los Angeles Kings skated to their second consecutive 4-2 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night, delighting a crowd of 15,087 at the Staples Center.
Jean-Sebastien Aubin turned aside 27 of 29 shots and Brad Stuart, Anze Kopitar, Derek Armstrong and Dustin Brown provided the offensive support as the Kings (12-16-2) became the first team in eight games to score more than two goals against Vancouver.
In fact, the Canucks had conceded three goals just once in 22 outings since losing 4-2 to Los Angeles on Oct. 19.
"It was a real team effort tonight," Kings head coach Marc Crawford said. "We got a terrific effort from our defensive core."
Taylor Pyatt had a goal and an assist, while Alexander Edler counted the other goal for the Canucks (16-11-3).
Brendan Morrison had two assists.
Backup netminder Curtis Sanford was pressed into service by the Canucks because Roberto Luongo, who is nursing a bruised rib, pulled himself out of the lineup four minutes into the pre-game warmup.
"It just got worse over the last two days and I have been in pain all day," Luongo said of the injury, which he suffered in a 2-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Dec. 2.
"I was trying to see how I felt in warmups, but it wasn't good enough for me to go. It's not broken, but hurts when I breathe and hurts when I move.
"It's tough to do your job under those circumstances. It's day-to-day, right now.
"Hopefully, it's just a few days. It's almost got to heal on its own."
"Louie gave me the nod about midway through the warmup," Sanford said. "That's when I knew for sure that I was going to go in there.
"I knew when I signed with Vancouver [on July 3] that the workload wasn't going to be as much as it was in the past couple of years in St. Louis. But I just keep working hard in practice, so that I would be prepared for situations like this."
Sanford finished with 27 saves, but lost for the first time in four starts this season — all on the road.
"Every team has a good first and second goalie, but I don't think it would have mattered who was in goal tonight," Armstrong said. "Sanford didn't have much of a chance on any of our goals.
"We just had a solid team effort. They are a good hockey team and we battled them all night."
Los Angeles opened the scoring 3:22 into the contest on Stuart's third goal of the season, a screen shot that hopped into the net behind Sanford.
"I saw it leave his stick and then I just tried to put my body into the space where I thought it would hit me," Sanford said. "But it just went off my glove."
Pyatt tied it with a power-play goal, his seventh at 7:34, but Kopitar put the Kings ahead 2-1 with his 14th goal at the 9:19 mark.
Armstrong flipped a loose puck over a sprawled Sanford for his second, and a 3-1 lead with 4:49 expired in the second period.
Armstrong later set up Brown, who redirected his cross-ice pass for his 14th during a two-man advantage 11:41 into the third.
Edler responded with a power-play goal of his own, his second with 2:30 remaining.
"We had an effort from everybody," Crawford said. "And we scored a big 5-on-3 goal to fortify the win."
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