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Eric Gryba scores winner, Oilers beat Kings 3-1 (Dec 29, 2016)
EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) Eric Gryba's gave the Edmonton Oilers two points with his first goals of the season.
Gryba broke a tie at 6:58 of the third period and Jordan Eberle had two assists in the Oilers' 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night. It was Gryba's first goal since Feb. 2, and the sixth of his 236-game NHL career.
''It was just a lucky play. I took a swing at it and it went in,'' Gryba said. ''To come out and play like we did tonight, a real complete, honest game, shows some maturity and a lot of growth in this group.''
Patrick Maroon and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins also scored for the Oilers. They are 4-0-1 in their last five and 19-12-6 overall.
Cam Talbot made 28 saves, allowing only Nick Shore's goal.
The Kings have dropped three straight to fall to 17-15-4.
''We got beat on the scoreboard, but we can't complain about much else,'' Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. ''We played a hell of a hockey team in a tough building.''
It was the second of five meetings between the two teams this season, with the Kings winning the first one 4-2 in Los Angeles. The Kings swept the five-game set last season, and came into the game with a 17-1-2 record against Edmonton in their last 20 meetings.
''We talk a lot about these division games and what it means to where you end up in the standings,'' Oilers forward and former King Milan Lucic said. ''To be able to break a long streak against Arizona and another one here against another division team, that's huge for us. This is the fun time of the year, when games start meaning a lot more and we just have to go out there and keep playing like we did tonight.''
There was no scoring in the opening period, with Edmonton putting nine shots on Kings goalie Peter Budaj, and Los Angeles recording eight shots on Talbot in his NHL-leading 33rd start.
Edmonton broke the deadlock 2:32 into the second period with a power-play goal. Eberle fed it to Maroon at the side of the net and he completed a quick wraparound to beat Budaj for his 11th of the season.
Maroon almost added another late in the second, but Budaj came across to make a point-blank stop.
The Kings tied it 3 minutes into the third when Oilers forward Mark Letestu gave up the puck to Shore, who then picked the top corner on Talbot.
The Oilers made it 2-1 four minutes later. Budaj made a great foot save while sprawled on the ice, but Gryba swooped in to swat the rebound in out of the air for his first of the season.
Talbot made a huge save in the final minute on Devin Setoguchi to allow Nugent-Hopkins to score an empty-net goal to secure the victory.
Notes: Oilers defenseman Matt Benning came in for Andrej Sekera, who was ill. Also out for Edmonton were Iiro Pakarinen (knee), Darnell Nurse (foot), Mark Fayne (lower body) and Tyler Pitlick (knee) ... Absent from the Kings lineup were goalie Jonathan Quick (lower body), Brayden McNabb (arm) and Tyler Toffoli (lower body).
UP NEXT
Kings: Host San Jose on Saturday night.
Oilers: Host Vancouver on Saturday night.
