Sharks vs. Kings Odds
LOS ANGELES, CA (AP) – The Los Angeles Kings are wondering why their last two games didn’t look anything at all like their victory earlier this week over the San Jose Sharks.
The Kings are hoping to shake off two unsightly losses Saturday night when they try to earn a second win over the Sharks in six days.
Los Angeles (22-14-1) fell 6-3 at Phoenix on Wednesday and 7-4 at home to Philadelphia on Thursday. The 13 goals are the most the Kings have yielded in consecutive games since they gave up 13 from Oct. 10-12, 2007.
According to NHL odds and oddsmakers from online sports book SBGGlobal.com have made the Kings -120 money line favorites for Saturday’s game against the Sharks. Current NHL Public Betting Information shows that 65% of more than 451 bets for this game have been placed on the Sharks +111.
“Certainly two of our ugliest of the year,” defenseman Rob Scuderi said. “We’re not making excuses for ourselves, but it does happen. We have to scrape them under the rug and move on.”
What makes the efforts even more surprising is that they came after the Kings conceded a total of three goals and posted two shutouts during a four-game win streak. That stretch was capped by Monday’s 4-0 victory at San Jose (20-13-5) in which Jonathan Quick made 24 saves for his fourth shutout.
Quick was pulled after giving up six goals on 18 shots in the loss to Phoenix in favor of Jonathan Bernier, who exited against the Flyers after stopping 16 of 22 shots.
“If we want to win games, we can’t give up six and seven on back-to-back nights and expect to win any games,” defenseman Matt Greene said. “It’s mental and execution. It goes hand in hand. We’ve got to play the game, think the game and right now we’re not doing either one on defense.”
Quick is 4-1-1 with a 2.47 goals-against average in six career starts against the Sharks. Bernier played the entire game in his lone career start against them, a 6-3 loss Nov. 15.
Monday’s defeat ended San Jose’s four-game win streak, and the Sharks blew a third-period lead Wednesday in a 5-3 loss at Minnesota. They let a 3-1 lead slip away by allowing two goals in a 22-second span in the second period Thursday before recovering for a 5-3 win at Chicago.
Joe Thornton scored the go-ahead goal in the final period and Dany Heatley had a goal and an assist.
“We were pretty positive,” Thornton said. “It’s a 3-3 game. We’re in Chicago with 20 minutes to win the game. It was pretty upbeat (in the dressing room) and I think that’s probably why we won this game.”
Antti Niemi made 26 saves in the victory, bouncing back after suffering his first career loss to the Kings on Monday. Niemi is 3-1-0 with a 1.98 GAA in four starts against Los Angeles.
San Jose coach Todd McLellan said his team was “outworked, outhustled, outmuscled and outcommitted” on Monday. Los Angeles did all of its scoring in the third period, with two goals from Dustin Brown.
Those goals gave Brown 16 points in nine games, but he’s pointless in the last two. Brown has no goals in his last 12 home games against the Sharks.
San Jose is 13-5-0 in 18 games at Staples Center over the last five seasons, winning two of three there in 2009-10.
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