Kings fall short against Capitals

WASHINGTON — It has reached the point for the Kings where other teams are treating their arrival in town as a chance to feel better about themselves.

“Nothing against this team, but that’s the [kind of] teams we have to beat for sure, to make that push,” said Dainius Zubrus of the Washington Capitals after his goal was the difference in a 4-3 overtime win over L.A on Thursday night. “We’re going to have to do it on the road, but at home we have to take care of them.”

Such is life when you are last in the Western Conference.

Zubrus poked in a loose puck after Alexander Semin’s shot trickled past Kings goaltender Mathieu Garon and off the right post. It capped a rough night for Garon in his first game in nearly a month.

Boyd Gordon, Ben Clymer and Chris Clark also scored for the Capitals, and Alex Ovechkin had an assist to end the longest scoring drought of his young career -- he had gone three games without a point.

Anze Kopitar, Alexander Frolov and Lubomir Visnovsky scored for the Kings, who have lost 12 of their last 14 games.

Garon, returning from a broken finger and giving 40-year-old Sean Burke a night off, gave up three marginal goals in the second period. He whiffed glove-side on Gordon’s short-handed shot from the blue line, was slow to react on a wraparound by Clymer and let a close-in shot from Clark trickle in. Ovechkin got an assist on Clymer’s goal.

“They got a couple of easy goals that you don’t like to see happen, and they happened tonight,” Kings Coach Marc Crawford said. “In Mathieu’s case, I’m sure he’ll get better as he gets more comfortable in the net.”