Quick shines in Kings' win over Caps

[CSSports]

Roughly 24 hours after being named to the U.S. Olympic team, Jonathan Quick showed why he deserves to be in Vancouver next month.

Quick stopped 26 shots and Michal Handzus scored shorthanded early in the third period as the Los Angeles Kings earned a 2-1 victory against the Washington Capitals at the Staples Center on Saturday.

''They are one of the best offenses in the league, so we knew they would come hard,'' said Quick, who has started all but four of the Kings' 42 games. ''Our penalty kill was unbelievable, and Handzus came up with a huge shorthanded goal. We know we have a good team, so I don't think we felt enormous pressure.''

Mike Green scored the lone goal for Washington, which came via the power play 2:13 into the second period. Alex Ovechkin was held without a point for the seventh time this season, and the Caps have lost six of those games.

''I don't think the team is relying too much on him because, when he was out of the lineup for eight games, we were 6-2,'' said Washington coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team has lost three consecutive games in regulation for the first time this season. ''I mean, it might be something like, 'Hey, Alex is playing, so let him do it.' But if we're in that syndrome, we'd better get out of it in a hurry because we won't win too many games.''

Ryan Smyth gave the Kings a 1-0 lead when he tallied his 11th goal of the season at 19:01 of the first period. After Caps defenseman John Erskine was whistled for interference, Smyth gathered a loose puck in the crease and poked it past goalie Michal Neuvirth for a power-play goal. Neuvirth finished with 17 saves.

Washington controlled the tempo in the second period and tied it early on Green's power-play goal. The Caps outshot Los Angeles 13-3 in the middle 20 minutes, but couldn't get another shot past Quick.

''I thought Quick was really good,'' Boudreau said. ''I was watching him in the warmup and I thought if we had shot some more pucks, we would have gotten him. But he got into a zone and he was unbeatable after the Mike Green goal.''



http://www.nhl.com/ice/recap.htm?id=2009020614

[gretzky99]

that was a big win