Kings pin second straight loss on Jackets

If one was looking for a fun Saturday night out on the town, you could have done worse than hit up the hockey game at Nationwide Arena.

The Blue Jackets and Los Angeles Kings put on quite a show by combining for 10 goals.

In the end, it was Anze Kopitar knocking in a Dustin Brown shot with 2:14 left which led the Kings to a 6-4 win.

The victory was the sixth in seven games for the Kings; the Jackets have lost two consecutive games after a four-game winning streak.

“It was one of those games where the next one was going to win it,” captain Nick Foligno said.

“They got one late and it’s unfortunate. That’s a game we have to find a way to win, especially at home. You can’t lose two in a row, and that’s something we haven’t done in a long time. We pride ourselves in losing one and finding a way in the next one.”

After a wild first period in which the Jackets took a 3-2 lead, the Kings roared back to kick off a very entertaining second.

Los Angeles tied the score just 40 seconds into the period when defenseman Jake Muzzin sent a shot over Sergei Bobrovsky’s shoulder to make it 3-3.

The Kings retook a lead a few minutes later as Drew Doughty kicked off a rush, then deflected a long shot from Brown and put the puck past Bobrovsky.

Not to be outdone in the second, Columbus kept the pressure on and tied the score at the 15:15 mark when Sonny Milano got back on the scoresheet by muscling Oscar Fantenberg to

keep control of the puck and backhanded a shot past Jonathan Quick.

The goal was the fifth of the season for the rookie forward but first since he scored twice in an overtime win at Carolina in Game 3.

The Jackets and Kings got into a shootout in the opening period, with the two teams combining for five goals on 19 shots.

Columbus opened the scoring when Foligno snapped the Jackets’ 0-for-18 power play drought on a shot from the right circle 5:43 in on the first shot of the game.

Los Angeles quickly scored the next two goals.

The Kings tied the score at 1 when Brown wrested the puck away from Jack Johnson and Lukas Sedlak in the corner and found Kopitar, who beat Bobrovsky with a wrister.

Less than a minute later, the Kings took a 2-1 lead. It would not be a 2-1 game for long.

Oliver Bjorkstrand scored the fourth goal within a span of 2:17 when he hammered a loose puck off Quick’s pad from a David Savard shot into the back of the net.

“I had my eyes on the goalie, was waiting for a rebound,” Bjorkstrand said. “The rebound came out and it was an easy tap-in.”

Things settled down for a bit until Matt Calvert sent the red light flashing when he scored in traffic off a loose puck down low.

The game was delayed for a moment as that red light refused to shut off.

After going off three times behind the Kings net in the period, apparently it wasn’t done working.

The three-goal period was the third for the Jackets this season.

“It wasn’t the hockey we want to play in the first two, but we kept finding a way to stay in it,” Calvert said. “The third was more of the way we want to play, but unfortunately, they got the last one.”