Riding on goalie Ben Scrivens’ brilliant show, the Los Angeles Kings did not find it difficult to outsmart the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 at Staples Center on Tuesday night.

Making as many as 19 saves, Scrivens drew the attention of his teammates as well as his opponent, who found him a tough nut to crack. Thanks to the all-round support extended by other members of the team, Scrivens was able to make full use of the available opportunity which came due to Jonathan Quick’s groin injury.

Such was the brilliance with which Scrivens approached the game that he just missed out on creating a record when his shutout streak stopped at 191 minutes, 19 seconds against Quick’s 202 minutes, 11 seconds.

The new backup seems to be brimming with confidence and self-belief, and to come up with such a performance in front of his home crowd is all what Scrivens could have asked for before the start of the tie.

Confidence Brimming

“I always try to have a little bit confidence, too. You’ve got to have that self-belief. You got to come out and play well and give the team a chance, especially with Quickie down right now,”, a jubilant-looking Scrivens said, adding “I needed to come in and give these guys some solid play. That’s all they ever ask for. You don’t have to steal games or anything. You just need to be solid and give them a chance.”

“But it’s great playing behind these guys. They clear the front of the net, clear rebounds, let me see shoots. It’s a lot of fun play behind them,” Scrivens said, indicating how much he has been enjoying his dream run with the Kings.

While Anze Kopitar, Matt Frattin and Justin Williams accounted for a goal and an assist each, Dustin Brown and Dwight King were the other scorers for Los Angeles.

The Kings produced a concerted effort that kept their opponents at bay for most part of the game, it appears that they are not really feeling the heat on account of the absence of Quick and leading goal scorer Jeff Carter.

The Kings coach Darryl Sutter, however, was in no mood to reward Scrivens for his team’s spectacular show that helped them to inch closer to Chicago and Anaheim, the current league leaders. “(Scrivens) didn’t have much work tonight. He made a big save in the third period. Our team, we don’t give up a lot,” he said.

St Louis: Not Panicking

Tamp Bay coach Jon Cooper did not expect his team to perform so badly, particularly after the Kings lost in Tampa Bay 5-1 last month. “This hasn’t happened in back-to-back games this year,” a visibly-shocked Cooper said. “This was the first time we’ve been on the wrong end of the score twice in a row. Coming out west is a tough trip. There are some good teams out here, and I’m sure Los Angeles was licking their chops a little bit after what happened to them in Tampa.”

The Lightning captain Martin St. Louis, who had an assist, also looked quite upset on his team’s performance, although he opined there was no need to press the panic button as such. “It’s not a panic time. It’s just correcting the mistakes…. we got to stop this.We don’t want to turn a two-gamer into a four or five gamer,” St. Louis said, and went on to add that “At the end of the day, we have to do more. Sometimes hard work is overlooked over execution, but execution is just as important as working hard.”