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Thursday, Mar. 23 7:00pm ET
Stumpel delivers Kings' KO punch

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PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Jozef Stumpel was in the right place at the right time -- twice -- for the Los Angeles Kings.

Stumpel scored the tying goal late in the third period, and had the game-winner in overtime as Los Angeles beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 Thursday night.


	The Kings' Jozef Stumpel celebrates his tying goal with 2:15 remaining. Stumpel later scored the winner in overtime.

Stumpel, who tipped in Craig Johnson's shot from the front of the net to tie the game 2-2 with 2:15 left in regulation, helped the Kings snap a four-game winless string.

"I was pretty much tied up and I was fighting to get my hand free," Stumpel said of the tying goal. "Then it was just a matter of timing. The puck seemed to be there as soon as I got my stick down. Sometimes you get lucky once in a while."

His wrist shot from high in the slot trickled between the pads of Flyers' goalie Brian Boucher at 1:20 of overtime for the game-winner.

"I was in a pretty good spot for the game-winner," Stumpel said. "I saw the puck coming and I wanted to fire a hard shot right on the net. But I was really surprised to see it go in."

Philadelphia's Gino Odjick tapped in a rebound of Kent Manderville's shot to give the Flyers a 2-1 lead with 9:27 left in the third, just 57 seconds after Luc Robitaille's power-play goal tied it for the Kings.

Jody Hull scored Philadelphia's other goal in a game overshadowed by center Eric Lindros comments about the treatment of his second concussion of the season.

Los Angeles, which had lost its last five games in Philadelphia, snapped the Flyers' two-game winning streak. Philadelphia was 3-1-1 in its previous five.

Boucher, who shut out Nashville 2-0 on Tuesday, had not allowed a goal in 141 minutes, 27 seconds before Robitaille scored to tie Dave Andreychuk for 16th place on the NHL's career goal scoring list with 551.

"The puck hopped through Boucher when he tried to stop it," Philadelphia coach Craig Ramsay said. "Then we mishandled the puck and suddenly it was in the net."

Los Angeles goalie Stephane Fiset, making his first appearance since suffering a groin injury against Nashville on March 4, preserved the tie when he made a brilliant glove save on Mark Recchi's shot from the crease with 33 seconds left in the third.

"I wanted to give Recchi the five-hole," said Fiset, whose last two wins came over Detroit on Feb. 3 and Feb. 18. "Instead he shot it high. I got a glimpse of the puck and threw my glove up. I heard it whack, then I looked and saw the puck in my glove."

Hull gave the Flyers a 1-0 lead at 13:38 of the second when he redirected Manderville's tip of a shot from the left boards by Odjick. The assist was Manderville's first point since being acquired from Carolina on March 14.

"Any time you relinquish a lead like that late in the game, it's tough," Manderville said.

Manderville was also surprised at the type of game the Kings played. "Usually they are a little more free-wheeling," he said. "But surprising for a Western Conference team they played a tight-checking game. There was a lot of clutching and grabbing."

Earlier in the day, Lindros blamed himself and also criticized the Flyers organization for its handling of the circumstances surrounding his Grade II concussion that will sideline him for the rest of the regular season. Lindros suffered the injury against Boston on March 4, but played in four games after that.

The severity of Lindros's fourth concussion in two years wasn't diagnosed until the Philadelphia captain was examined in Chicago this week.

The Flyers issued an "organizational statement" before Thursday's game in which they defended the "integrity and skill" of their training team and medical staff.

In addition to missing Lindros, the Flyers played without rookie Simon Gagne, who has the flu.

The Flyers also announced that coach Roger Neilson was released from Philadelphia's Hahnemann University Hospital on Thursday. Neilson, suffering from cancer, underwent a stem cell transplant on Mar. 10 and is "doing extremely well," according to his physician, Dr. Isadore Brodsky.

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