Los Angeles – On Saturday night in the Staples Center, the Avalanche was 10 minutes away from a two-game sweep of its California road trip.
And at this point, with Colorado struggling to move away from the lower tier of the Western Conference standings, two consecutive road wins would have been one big deal.
After Pierre Turgeon, who was playing in only his second game of the season after recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, scored on a terrific individual effort to give the Avalanche a 4-3 lead over Los Angeles early in the third period, Colorado crumbled and fell 5-4 to the Kings.
Scott Thornton’s goal at 10:32 of the third period for the Kings tied it up, and then Craig Conroy got the game-winner at 13:48 as Los Angeles pulled off the comeback victory in the game as wild as any car on display at the Los Angeles Auto Show in the Convention Center.
Conroy knocked a rebound past Avalanche goalie Jose Theodore as Conroy was being cross-checked by Colorado defenseman Brett Clark, putting Los Angeles in front for good.
The Kings were coming off a horrible showing in a 4-1 Thursday loss to Nashville at home, and the Staples Center fans again were grumbling after Colorado got early goals from Antti Laaksonen and Joe Sakic to take a 2-0 lead.
Laaksonen, who has been struggling and even was a healthy scratch three times this season, came into the night with only one goal, and that came against San Jose on Nov. 15. He doubled his total when he one-timed a pass from Ian Laperriere past Kings goalie Dan Cloutier at 3:25 of the first period.
Then Sakic got his 12th of the season at 6:57, knocking the puck out of a scramble in front of the net just as he was being leveled.
The Kings came back early in the second period. Tom Kotsopolous converted a 2-on-1 and scored on a shot to the short side, under Theodore’s stick arm, then Michael Cammalleri beat the Avalanche goalie from the left-wing circle.
Sakic’s pass from near the left-wing boards set up John-Michael Liles’ one-timer from the top of the slot, and it got past Cloutier to make it 3-2 at 18:47.
Camallerri’s second goal of the game, though, tied it at 4:13 of the third, before Pierre Turgeon’s took advantage of a rare faux pas by Kings captain Mattias Norstrom to out the Avalanche back in front.
Turgeon jumped in, intercepting Norstrom’s attempted pass to Conroy to Cloutier’s left. Turgeon got a shot off as Norstrom was pulling him down from behind, and it got past Cloutier for Turgeon’s 512th career goal.
The lead didn’t last long, though, because Scott Thornton scored for the Kings at 10:22 to tie it up again. And then Conroy got the game-winner against Theodore, who finished with 33 saves.
