Quick's 41 saves lifts Kings over Panthers 2-1

The Florida Panthers did just about everything right on Thursday night -- except win. Jonathan Quick made sure of that.

Quick stopped 41 shots to make goals by Jack Johnson and Dustin Brown stand up for a 2-1 victory on Thursday night, the seventh straight time they've beaten the Panthers.

Florida hasn't beaten Los Angeles since Nov. 27, 2002. The Panthers probably would have broken that string were it not for Quick.

"It's great for Quickie," Brown said of his goaltender's performance, "but we've got to give him more help."

Johnson gave the Kings a quick lead when his shot from the left boards hit Florida defenseman Mike Weaver and went past the glove of Jose Theodore just 1:35 after the opening faceoff. Brown scored a power-play goal at 14:13 of the second, beating Theodore with a high shot from the left circle after taking a breakout pass from Slava Voynov.

Quick did the rest.

He stopped all 13 shots he faced in the first period, then survived a barrage that saw the Panthers outshoot L.A. 10-1 in the first 12 1/2 minutes of the second period, including a 5-on-3 power play that lasted for 35 seconds.

In all, Quick and the Kings killed six Florida power plays, stretching their streak of kills to 24.

"A lot of their chances came on the power play," Brown said. "They're a top-10 power play in the League, and they moved it around. We found a way to kill it off with some big bodies and some big saves. Quickie, he's been doing that ever since he's been here."

Quick said he got plenty of help from his penalty-killers, especially during the 5-on-3.

"It's been good these past few games," he said. "We put a really big effort on it last game. We had a streak of maybe five or six games where we let up a goal in each game. It's something, as a team, we're not used to and we know we're better than that. It's been something we've been making a big push on. The whole team is just a, `Way to go out there for the PK' mentality, and it's been great."

Florida coach Kevin Dineen said his team earned its power-play chances by outplaying the Kings.

"They were trying to run around and chase us and hack us, and slash us," Dineen said. "When you're getting outplayed as badly as they were, that's your response. We walk out of here feeling very good about the way we played. Their goalie got them a couple of points.

Sean Bergenheim cut the deficit to 2-1 at 15:39 of the middle period, firing the rebound of Erik Gudbranson's wrist shot from the right point past Quick. It was the only one of Florida's 16 second-period shots the goaltender didn't get.

Florida kept pressing in the third period, firing 13 more shots at Quick, but couldn't beat him.

"They had a real tough time handling our speed," Dineen said.

The Panthers played without top scorer Kris Versteeg, who was scratched due to a broken nose sustained in Tuesday's 3-1 win at Carolina. Los Angeles lost defenseman Willie Mitchell with a lower-body injury on the game's first shift and was without center Mike Richards for the third period after a hit from Bergenheim that drew a roughing penalty. The Kings said it's an upper-body injury and that he'll be evaluated Friday.

Even playing down two skaters, the Kings were able to improve to 6-2-1 in their last nine games.

"We were able to win one tonight, and that's great," Brown said, "but if we play our game the majority of the time, we can play much better."

Material from team media was used in this report