Stars Lose on Last-Second Goal

Michal Handzus scored the tiebreaking goal with 20.8 seconds remaining and the Los Angeles Kings stretched their winning streak to three with a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Sunday. Jamie Langenbrunner had tied it at 2 for Dallas with 43 seconds left when he poked a loose puck through the pads of Jonathan Quick, who lost sight of the puck in the crease after stopping Alex Goligoski's attempt. But with the game seemingly headed for overtime, Handzus set up in front and steered Alexei Ponikarovsky's centering feed past goalie Kari Lehtonen to give the Kings the win. Drew Doughty and Dustin Penner added goals, and Quick made 17 saves for the Kings, 7-2-1 in their last 10. Los Angeles improved to 83 points, one more than Dallas in the tight Western Conference playoff race. Brad Richards also scored and Lehtonen stopped 22 shots for the Stars, 6-1-2 in their last nine games. Los Angeles struck on the game's first power play when Doughty's slap shot from the right point got past a screened Lehtonen at 3:04 of the opening period. Penner made it 2-0 at 14:01 of the second, converting Anze Kopitar's goal-mouth feed his 23rd goal. Richards narrowed the deficit to 2-1 at 18:00 of the second when he scored on a breakaway off a long lead pass from Loui Eriksson. Richards' 25th goal of the season was his first since Feb. 13. He missed 10 games with concussion-like symptoms and played his third since returning. Notes: Stars C Jamie Benn had a six-game, goal-streak snapped. ... Kopitar, coming off his second career hat trick in Friday night's 4-2 win at Columbus, has seven goals and eight assists in 10 games. Kopitar rang a shot off a post with about five minutes to go in the first period. ... Dallas was without forward Adam Burish (lower body). He has several nagging injuries and is day-to-day. ... Lehtonen made his 10th consecutive start and played in his 56th game of the season. Injuries limited Lehtonen to 58 games over the previous two seasons.

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