Kings beat Blue Jackets as Jonathan Quick owns the shootout

After all this time the Kings still have the capacity to surprise their coach.

And themselves.

They earned a 4-3 shootout victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Wednesday, thanks to an unexpectedly slick move by defenseman Matt Greene to set up their second goal and a bold poke check by goaltender Jonathan Quick on Matt Calvert, the Blue Jackets’ second shooter in the tiebreaker. Those unlikely ploys, combined with their usual excellent penalty killing during a lengthy five-on-three disadvantage, left them 5-0-2 on their 10-game odyssey and extended their point streak to 8-0-2, one short of the club record set in 1974.

“It wasn’t pretty,” said Jarret Stoll, who snapped a fierce shot past Mathieu Garon — his former Edmonton teammate — for the only goal in the shootout. “We had some breakdowns on their goals, but we got the two points, that’s the bottom line.”

Jonathan Quick, on a 7-0-1 run, owned the shootout. He forced sniper Rick Nash to shoot wide, aggressively poked the puck from Calvert before Stoll scored, and stopped a backhand shot by Kristian Huselius to clinch the victory before a spirited crowd of 12,442 at Nationwide Arena.

“He surprised me because I haven’t seen that poke check very often,” Coach Terry Murray said. “He certainly surprised Calvert. He faced two of their premier players and did the job for us.”

Quick, 19-7 in shootouts in his career, knew the risks of trying to knock the puck away.

“He kind of had his head down and was sort of taking his time so I saw an opportunity. I tried to jump on it,” he said. “It’s kind of a hit-or-miss play. If I miss there I’m pretty much going to have the five-hole wide open.”

The team’s overall effort wasn’t perfect. The Kings, who inched up to ninth in the West, had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 but continued their maddening habit of giving up a goal soon after scoring one. And they had to go beyond regulation after Kris Russell backhanded home the rebound of a shot by Jakub Voracek with 1 minute 23 seconds left in the third.

“You don’t want to give them one point,” Greene said, “but we’re happy with the two we got.”

Justin Williams gave them a 1-0 lead at 16:52 of the first period, six seconds after the expiration of a power play. Alec Martinez’s shot was partly blocked and the puck bounced off Andrei Loktionov and to Williams, who scored from short range. Columbus matched that at 18:34, on a crisp passing play finished by Voracek.

Greene engineered the Kings’ second goal, at 13:05 of the second period. Though not a scorer, he carried the puck into Columbus’ zone and put it on net. Garon fumbled it and Greene captured the puck behind the net and centered it to Andrei Loktionov for short-range success.

“I was surprised by it, that he was in around the net with that play,” Murray said. “But he has that ability to do that — surprise me.”

Columbus made it 2-2 at 15:14, when Derek MacKenzie fed Nash for a 15-foot shot, but the Blue Jackets missed a chance to go ahead by failing to muster much during a 1-minute, 53-second five-on-three advantage that began late in the second period and carried over to the third. “That was gigantic,” Murray said.

Drawing momentum, the Kings went ahead again on Drew Doughty’s blue-line blast at 6:08 of the third, but the Blue Jackets matched that on Russell’s goal. The Kings, however, weren’t done. “We’ve still got to fight for that playoff spot. It’s a real tight conference right now and we’ve got to battle every night,” Quick said.

They won this battle, giving up three goals or fewer for the 16th game in a row, but another tussle awaits Thursday in New York against the Rangers.

“I don’t think we had our best game by any means,” defenseman Rob Scuderi said. “Sometimes you just have to find a way to win.”

It’s no surprise anymore that they did.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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