LOS ANGELES_And so, Trevor Lewis, Matt Greene and Nic Dowd led the Los Angeles Kings out of the darkness, out of the scoreless abyss.
Just like everyone thought, right?
The Kings scored for the first time in a week and managed to add two more goals for good measure, beating the reigning Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2, in overtime Thursday night at Staples Center.
Curious stat of the season: They have yet to win in regulation this season. The Kings have won four games in overtime and needed a shootout in their other victory.
Dowd, left all alone in front, had the winner at 2 minutes 37 seconds of overtime, deking Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury twice, finally beating him with a backhander, after a nice feed from left wing Tanner Pearson.
"Going scoreless in three games hurts," Dowd said in his post-game television interview. "Just happy I got the puck over to Marty (Alec Martinez), and Marty made a real good play and Tanner made a good play to me in the slot and gave me a chance to get a shot on goal."
For the Kings, it was their first victory in four games. They had matched a franchise mark, set in the 1968-69 season, by failing to score in three consecutive games. Their last goal had been scored in overtime on Oct. 27 by Jeff Carter against Nashville.
Sidney Crosby led Pittsburgh with two goals.
Crosby and the Penguins took advantage of a rare miscue by Kings defenseman Drew Doughty in his own zone in the third period. Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang picked off Doughty's clearing attempt and found Crosby in front of Kings goalie Peter Budaj. Crosby, who scored with a deft redirection at 9:28 of the third period, has six goals in five games this season.
Lewis broke the long drought for the Kings with a fluke goal, a non-threatening effort, which went in off the stick of Fleury, at 5:25 of the second period, tying it, 1-1.
Even the Kings twitter feed had some good-natured fun with the end of the scoring drought, which lasted for 205 minutes and 25 seconds.
Carter helped put the Kings ahead, 2-1, at 2:14 of the third period, winning the draw cleanly back to Greene at the right point. It was Greene's first goal since March 3, 2015, and his presence in the lineup has come after injuries to the defense corps. He got back into the lineup on Sunday in Chicago, one night after defenseman Brayden McNabb was injured in St. Louis.
Since then, the Kings have sustained another injury _ to forward Andy Andreoff _ and were hit with another suspension. The Kings put Andreoff on injured reserve on Thursday and called up defenseman Kevin Gravel from their minor league affiliate in Ontario.
Also, they were without one of their dependable defensemen as Tom Gilbert drew a three-game suspension, the NHL's Department of Player Safety announced.
He was suspended for boarding Ducks forward Nick Ritchie in Tuesday's game between the Kings and Anaheim, an incident occurring at 16:34 of the second period. The league held a telephone hearing with Gilbert on Thursday and announced its decision in the afternoon.
Ritchie did not return to the Kings-Ducks game, as per protocol for suspected concussions.
