Kings Find A Way To Lose - Canes Win

The Carolina Hurricanes have won all 11 games they've led after two periods, not without getting a big scare from the Los Angeles Kings.

Erik Cole snapped a 13-game goal drought by scoring twice, Justin Williams also scored and Martin Gerber made 35 saves to lead the Southeast Division-leading Hurricanes to a 3-2 victory on Thursday night.

"We were very fortunate to hang on with the way we played in the third period," Cole said. "We didn't do a very good job of getting pucks out of our end. You can't sit on any kind of lead anymore. You used to be able to, the way the old rules were. But it's tough when you're killing penalties because that's going to help the other team build momentum."

The Kings outshot Carolina 18-6 over the final 20 minutes, getting goals from Jeff Cowan and Eric Belanger. But Alexander Frolov took a hooking penalty with 3:16 to play, derailing the comeback bid.

"They're a good hockey team. They picked it up in the third period and they got it going," Carolina coach Peter Laviolette said. "But we did some really careless things with the puck and really undisciplined things with penalties. We were very fortunate to walk out of here with a win."

The Kings were awarded six consecutive power plays, but failed to score more than two goals for the sixth straight time. It was their fifth loss in that stretch.