The Los Angeles Kings will look to rein in Mason Marchment when they visit the Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday night.
The 30-year-old forward had a hat trick and added an assist in the Blue Jackets 8-5 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday. He has eight goals in nine games since being obtained in December from the Seattle Kraken.
Marchment missed eight games with an upper-body injury earlier this month, but Columbus is 6-2-1 with him in the lineup and has climbed into the Eastern Conference playoff race.
“It’s really big to have a guy his caliber, his size,” teammate Charlie Coyle said of the 6-5, 212-pound Marchment. “He can kind of play up and down the lineup if needed. It seems like he’s scored every game for us so far that he’s been here, so we of course missed that type of player in our lineup the last however many weeks.”
Against the Lightning, Columbus surrendered a 4-2 lead after 20 minutes in the second period but responded with a pair of goals before the stanza ended.
“The thing that sticks out for me is just the way that we bounced back after they kind of came back and pushed against us in the second there,” Marchment said. “For us to keep our foot on the gas and keep frustrating them was huge.”
Coyle scored his 200th goal and had two assists, and Adam Fantilli broke a 17-game goalless streak and added two assists. Jet Greaves made 25 saves as Columbus won for the sixth time in seven games.
Los Angeles will be playing the second of a six-game road trip after a 5-4 shootout win in St. Louis on Saturday. The Kings have won two straight after losing four in a row as they remain firmly in the Pacific Division playoff race.
Kings forward Trevor Moore returned with a bang after missing 11 games because of an upper-body injury. He scored a third-period goal and then supplied the game winner in the fourth round of the shootout.
“It just feels good to be back and playing,” Moore said. “Just grateful for that and to see one go in in an important moment always feels good.”
Alex Laferriere had a goal and an assist for the Kings, and Taylor Ward and Brian Dumoulin also scored in regulation. Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves for the Kings, who rallied after falling behind 3-2 in the second period.
“We made mistakes. … We gave them three, but I really liked the push back after that to tie. It was important, and I thought the third period was our best period,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “They scored one late, but the third period, we had chances.”
The Kings are 8-13 in a league-high 21 games decided in overtime or a shootout.
Kuemper is 4-4-2 with a 2.10 goals-against average and .935 save percentage against Columbus.
In the teams’ first meeting, Marchment scored two power-play goals in his second game with Columbus, and the visiting Blue Jackets beat the Kings 3-1 on Dec. 22. Greaves made 23 saves in his first career start against the Kings.
–Field Level Media
