Quick and Kings blank Flames 3-0

[March 29, 2012]  CALGARY, Alberta (AP) -- Jonathan Quick stopped 19 shots for his ninth shutout of the season and the Los Angeles Kings beat the Calgary Flames 3-0 Wednesday night to move into the eighth place in the Western conference.

Willie Mitchell, Dustin Brown and Justin Williams scored for the Kings (38-27-12), who snapped a two-game losing streak. Anze Kopitar had two assists.

Quick has the Kings record to himself now, adding onto the record of eight he shared with Rogie Vachon, who set the mark in the 1976-77 season.

The Kings blanked their opponents for the 10th time this season to tie another club record set in 2000-01.

Miikka Kiprusoff stopped 27 of 30 shots for Calgary.

The Flames (35-28-15) have gone 1-3-3 in their past seven games and are three points behind the Kings for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference with four games remaining on their schedule.

After going 3-for-6 on the power play during their 5-4 win over the Dallas Stars at home on Monday, the Flames got nothing from four chances against the Kings.

On the first shift of the game, the Kings hemmed the Flames into their own zone, but Kiprusoff turned aside shots by Rob Scuderi, Jeff Carter and Drew Doughty.

The Kings kept pressing through and were rewarded at 5:03 of the first period when Mitchell did a great job to keep the puck in at the point before blasting a shot through traffic that sneaked through Kiprusoff's legs.

Later in the period, with the Flames killing a penalty to Scott Hannan for interference, Kiprusoff made a great glove grab to stop a blistering slap shot off the stick of Doughty.

At the other end of the ice, Quick made a pad save to deny a scoring opportunity by Alex Tanguay before making a shoulder save to turn aside a shot from the slot by Jay Bouwmeester.

Brown put the Kings up 2-0 at 4:22 of the second period when he converted a feed from Kopitar to finish off a nice give-and-go play.

The Kings played stifling defense in the third period and held the Flames to just four shots. Quick's only real test came at the mid-way mark of the final frame when he stood his ground to stop a shot from the slot off the stick of Blake Comeau.

Williams added an empty-net goal to seal the victory.

NOTES: L.A. and Calgary split the season series, and the road team won all four games. ... The Kings are 26-0-3 this season and 84-0-6 in their past 91 games when leading after the second period. ... Since Darryl Sutter took over as L.A.'s head coach, the Kings are 23-13-8 record. ... Before the game, Calgary defenseman Mark Giordano was honored as one of this year's recipients of the J.R. McCaig Award. Long-time Flames staff member Art Hernandez also received the award, which is named after former owner J.R. Bud McCaig.

[Associated Press]

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