Four Kings score in win against Senators

LOS ANGELES -- Four players scored, and Peter Budaj made 19 saves for the Los Angeles Kings in a 4-1 win against the Ottawa Senators at Staples Center on Saturday.
The win was No. 200 for coach Darryl Sutter in Los Angeles; he is the second Kings coach to win that many (200-123-47).

Trevor Lewis had a goal and an assist, and Jeff Carter, Alec Martinez and Marian Gaborik scored for the Kings (14-11-2). Budaj got his first assist of the season on Carter's goal.
"The past few games we didn't get bounces and the execution that we wanted," Budaj said. "The power play built momentum with big goals. It's a good team on the other side and we got good goals off the hop, so they were playing from behind, and it's a little different game when you have a little bit of a lead."
Zack Smith scored for the Senators (16-10-2). Mike Condon made 15 saves.
WATCH: All Senators vs. Kings highlights
"We put ourselves in a deep hole right off the bat, so it's a difficult job to come back," Senators coach Guy Boucher said. "But the effort was there, the guys battled hard."
Carter swiped a loose puck, broke loose into the slot and scored on the power play to give the Kings a 1-0 lead 3:10 into the first period. He leads the Kings with 12 goals.
Los Angeles scored on the power play again at 7:22 when Martinez's shot bounced off Condon's back to make it 2-0.
"I fanned on the first one," Martinez said. "Tanner [Pearson] made a really good play up to me. I just tried to shoot it as hard as I can, get it out of the net, and it was a gratuitous bounce but I'll take it. It was a really good screen in front, so tip of the cap to them."
Smith made it 2-1 2:00 into the second period. The Kings extended their lead to 3-1 with two seconds left in the period when Lewis scored off a rebound from Derek Forbort's shot.

"I think the biggest deflator was the end of the second period," Boucher said. "We've played really good in one-goal games, so we just needed to keep it at one."
Gaborik made it 4-1 with a top-shelf power-play goal at 12:39 of the third. Gaborik, who missed the first 21 games of the season with a broken foot, scored for the first time since Feb. 12, his final game of last season.
Senators forward Chris Neil played his 1,000th NHL game.

Goal of the game

Lewis' goal gave the Kings momentum after what was otherwise a strong second period for the Senators. It was his third goal in four games; he has five this season.
"I heard somebody say, 'Why is he playing with Anze Kopitar?'" Sutter said. "It's because he's the leading goal-scorer on that line."

Save of the game

With 1:29 left in the second period, Cody Ceci shot through traffic but Budaj gloved it to keep it 2-0.

Unsung performance of the game

Pearson dug the puck out of the corner and sent it up to Martinez, whose point shot took an awkward bounce off Condon into the net.

Highlight of the game

Gaborik skated into the circle and got off a wrist shot so quickly that Condon had no time to react.

They said it

"Power play wasn't the difference of the game. The difference of the game was the ability to kill penalties. We killed three or four, the first two were not good penalties that we took. It could just [as] easily be talk about scoring two on the five-minute, saying, 'Well, we took a couple bad ones, but scored two.' That's the difference tonight." -- Kings coach Darryl Sutter
"I was saying to Phil Varone, he said, 'Are you nervous?' I said, 'Well, it feels like my first NHL game again.' Once I got out there and going. I thought they were going to make me do a lap by myself. I was looking, looking and [Condon] kept coming." -- Senators forward Chris Neil on playing in his 1,000th NHL game

Need to know

Andy Murray won 215 games as coach of the Kings from 2000-06 (215-176-31, 58 ties). … Dean Lombardi became the first Kings general manager to win 400 games. … Los Angeles plays its next nine games on the road, through Dec. 29.

What's next

Senators: At the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday (4 p.m. ET; TVA Sports, PRIME, TSN5, NHL.TV)
Kings: At the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday (7 p.m. ET; MSG-B, FS-W, NHL.TV)