Doan’s deep ball to Martinook lifts Coyotes past Kings

GLENDALE, Ariz. — Shane Doan likened Jordan Martinook’s game-winning goal on Saturday to a Carson-Palmer-to-John-Brown touchdown pass.

“He lifts the top off the defense,” Doan said of Martinook. “As long as he doesn’t have to slow down and I don’t underthrow him, he’s going to have a chance.”

Martinook said he and Doan have actually worked on the play “numerous times” in practice and have tried it in a few games.

“Doaner is so good at that flip,” Martinook said. “He always says ‘you go and skate into it’ and that’s exactly what I tried to do.”

That’s exactly what Martinook did. Just twenty-seconds into the third period, Doan launched a high pass from his zone to Martinook who was streaking through the neutral zone. Martinook batted the puck down to his stick, got around Kings defenseman Drew Doughty with some speed and muscle and then lifted a backhand over goalie Jonathan Quick for the deciding goal in the Coyotes’ 3-2 win over the Kings.

The play was the capstone in another event-filled edition of the Coyotes-Kings rivalry, and it provided a much-needed lift for the Coyotes, who snapped a four-game home losing streak (0-3-1) and finished this seven-game homestand on a high note with two road games left before the All-Star break.

Arizona completed the homestand 3-3-1 while improving to 11-2-2 against the Pacific Division and 3-0-1 against the Kings this season.

“It gets us to .500 on the points — seven points out of the 14 — and there’s some positives in that,” coach Dave Tippett said. “For the most part, we leave the homestand on a good note and we’ve got an opportunity with two more hard road games before the break to see if we can collect some more points and go into the break and get a little rest.”

Saturday’s game had a handful of memorable moments, as this rivalry always seems to produce. Doan staked the Coyotes to a 1-0 lead after one period when Michael Stone’s shot from the point caromed off his chest.

It was Doan’s 17th goal of the season and 11th in his last 15 games, putting him on pace for a career high of 33 goals.

“Stand in the right place at the right time,” said Doan, who joked that he merely flexed his chest when the puck arrived to bounce it into the net.

The Kings got the equalizer on a bizarre play early in the second period.

As Domingue played the puck at the side of his net, Kings left winger Tanner Pearson ran into him and Coyotes center Boyd Gordon fell over the top of Domingue. Domingue clearly thought he had been interfered with and took off his mask, but the officials did not whistle the play dead and Kings center Nick Shore scored into an empty net.

“My strapping was off. I didn’t fake anything,” Domingue said. “It came undone and when that happens your mask goes below your eyes so I just took it off. Quite honestly, I thought they would blow the whistle before that.”

Domingue thought Pearson interfered with him as well.

“He definitely put me down and the referee said he was entitled to this part of the ice,” Domingue said.

Part of the explanation for ruling it a good goal came in the amount of time that elapsed between Pearson’s contact and Shore’s goal, but the Coyotes wasted little time answering.

Max Domi lifted a beautiful saucer pass across the slot and past two Kings onto the stick of Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who one-timed a shot past Quick at 9:19 of the second period for a 2-1 lead. The goal was Ekman-Larsson’s 14th of the season, pulling him into a tie with Carolina’s Justin Faulk for the second-most goals in the NHL by a defenseman this season.

Los Angeles tied the game at 2-2 with 3:05 left in the second period when center Jeff Carter’s wrist shot from the right point hit the left post and bounced right onto Brown’s stick for an easy tap-in.

The goal set up a wild third period that began with Martinook’s goal, included a game misconduct for Kings forward Milan Lucic for sucker-punching defenseman Kevin Connauton after he was slashed, and ended with an incredible final minute in which the Coyotes pinned the Kings in their own end, preventing L.A. from pulling Quick for an extra attacker. Forwards Antoine Vermette, Tobias Rieder and Boyd Gordon were the catalysts for the final 45 seconds of pressure.

“The whole bench was on their feet and everybody was cheering,” Martinook said. “You just realize what kind of group we have when those guys are in there working as hard as they can to keep the puck down there.”

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