Kings Out-Wit Phoenix 3-2

March 21, 1998 / 8:30 PM EST / CBS/AP

Sean O'Donnell and the rest of the Los Angeles Kings' defensemen look at team captain Rob Blake and can only fantasize about what it would be like to score 20 goals in a season while patrolling the blue line.

O'Donnell scored his second of the season with 7:19 left in the third for the go-ahead goal, and Blake became the second defenseman in Kings history with two 20-goal seasons in Saturday's 3-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.

"I'm sure if you asked him at the start of the year, he would have been happy with 14 or 15. So this is a bonus," O'Donnell said. "We know he's far and away the best defenseman on our team and the best player on our team. So we're just happy he plays for us and not somebody else."

Blake, an eight-year veteran whose other 20-goal season was 1993-94, opened the scoring with a 35-foot slap shot that beat Jimmy Waite to the stick side at 14:20 of the first period.

Steve Duchesne, the only other defenseman with more than one 20-goal campaign in a Kings uniform, did it in three consecutive seasons and set a Kings record for blueliners with 25 goals in 1988-89. The only other defenseman in club history to reach the 20-goal mark was Larry Murphy in 1981-82.

"It's always a goal at the start of the season, to get to 20," Blake said. "That's a marker for most defensemen. It came a little quicker than I thought it would with 14 games left. But it's something I set for myself every year, and this year I got it accomplished pretty quick."

Oleg Tverdovsky scored on a power play for his first goal in 17 career games against Los Angeles, and Daniel Briere got his first NHL goal 29 seconds later, helping Phoenix tie the score at 9:39 of the second period.

But Ian Laperriere won a faceoff deep in the Phoenix zone and got the draw back to O'Donnell, whose low slap shot from the right point beat Waite to the stick side.

"Ian did a great job winning the draw back to me and I just fired it at the net," O'Donnell said. "Between their defensemen and Sandy Moger going to the net, the goalie had no idea it was coming. I just threw it at the net and we got a break."

The Coyotes, who had three power plays in the third period while the Kings had none, got the man advantage after Philippe Boucher was called for holding Brad Isbister with 1:38 to play. Phoenix pulled Waite for an extra attacker moments later, but goaltender Stephane Fiset held off the Coyotes' final flurry.

"It's unbelievable. We have absolutely no luck at all," said Jeremy Roenick, who has had to carry most of the Coyotes' offensive load lately because of injuries to Keith Tkachuk, Craig Janney and about a half-dozen others. "We work hard and we work out butts off, but we come up on the short end of the puck."

After faling behind 2-0 on Glen Murray's 24th goal with a minute left in the opening period, the Coyotes successfully killed off a five-minute power play including a two-man disadvantage for the final 1@1/2 minutes of it.

Fiset got a penalty for high-sticking, as he went to his knees to smother the puck and inadvertently tapped Mike Stapleton on top of the head with the butt end of his stick while trying to defend himself against the onrushing Coyotes center.

"It wasn't a very good call," Blake said. "He was just trying to protect himself. He wasn't going to stick the guy or anything. The ref said if he hit Steph, he was going to give him the penalty. But we don't want anybody hitting our goalie."

Tverdovsky capitalized on the ensuing power play by scoring his fifth goal on a setup by Teppo Numminen, who intercepted Laperriere's attempted clearing pass from the right corner.

The red light had barely gone off before Mike Gartner batted down another weak backhanded clearing attempt by Boucher and fed Briere in the slot at 9:39 of the second for the equalizer.

"There were three or four instances tonight where we had good chances to clear the puck and didn't," Kings coach Larry Robinson said. "That's one area where we've definitely got to bear down on. We were guilty of that early in the season and we started bearing down a lot better."

Briere, a 20-year-old center chosen 24th overall in the 1996 entry draft, was playing in his second NHL game since being promoted from Springfield of the AHL on March 18.