What we’ve learned from the Kings’ 3-1 victory over the Dallas Stars

The Kings ended their five-game trip on a handful of positive notes Tuesday night in Dallas. They recorded their first road win of the season, Trevor Lewis and Kyle Clifford scored their first goals of the season and, well, the captain, Dustin Brown, scored his first goal as a 30-year-old.

There were other takeaways, of course, after one long rainy day and night in Dallas:

Lewis has some lively offensive flair

The skilled penalty-killer scored a slick shorthanded goal to spark the Kings, the first of three straight goals after they trailed, 1-0, against the Stars.

Lewis, who missed nine games with an upper-body injury, has been better and looked stronger since he’s been back in the lineup, recording three points, including the two-point effort on Tuesday.

“He works hard at both ends of the ice,” Brown said. “I think he plays his role really well. Every once and awhile he shows [offensive] spurts. We see it in practice and stuff like that.

“He gets an opportunity like that and he’s done it in the past where he’s had really nice goals in front like that. It’s not surprising when he does it, but it’s nice to see.”

When in doubt, give more ice time to Doughty

With the Kings desperately needing a win to close out the trip, Coach Darryl Sutter went to a tried-and-true formula.

Drew Doughty never seemed to leave the ice. In fact, the defenseman played a season-high 31 minutes 46 seconds on Tuesday night. Of the Kings’ 13 games, he has had four games of 30 minutes or more of ice time. In another game, he was just shy of the 30-minute mark. Doughty’s ice time in the other games on this trip-- 29:30 (Philadelphia), 30:57 (Pittsburgh), 27:04 (Detroit) and 28:16 (Carolina).

“I said yesterday that Drew is getting stronger,” Sutter said. “So it was a strong game. Playing against that line Drew’s got to play a lot of minutes. Not much we can do about it. He’s got to play a lot of minutes.”

Sutter was making a reference to the absence of top-four defenseman Slava Voynov, who remains suspended indefinitely by the NHL. His big minutes have been reallocated, some finding their way to Doughty.

Voynov has now missed more than half the season and the next step in his legal situation isn’t expected to come until later this week or even next week, according to Redondo Beach police. He was arrested last month on suspicion of domestic violence, and no charges have been filed.

Ice time is the ultimate weapon

You get a good picture of what Sutter is thinking and planning when you take a quick glance at the game summary.

At the other end of the Doughty spectrum, defenseman Brayden McNabb played a season low 7:44 – all even-strength minutes -- against the Stars.

Sutter greatly increased the power-play time of scorer Marian Gaborik in Gaborik’s second game back from his upper-body injury. Gaborik logged 4:39 of power-play time, and had some good chances, overall, finishing with a team-high four shots on goal. Doughty, Justin Williams and Tyler Toffoli all had four shots on goal as well.

“You’ve got to find ways to score when you’re not scoring,” Sutter said. “The top end of your lineup has got to score goals. Five-on-three, you’ve got to score a goal.

“Gaborik had some really good looks. If he is sharper, he probably scores on a couple of them. That’s the way it goes.”