Oilers 2, Kings 1, OT

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Less than a minute into the game, Edmonton's Jan Hejda was knocked over the boards and into the Los Angeles Kings' bench by fellow rookie Konstantin Pushkarev. He got his revenge

Tuesday, January 9th 2007, 6:30 am

By: News On 6

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Less than a minute into the game, Edmonton's Jan Hejda was knocked over the boards and into the Los Angeles Kings' bench by fellow rookie Konstantin Pushkarev. He got his revenge the best way possible.

Hejda scored his first NHL goal with 3:46 left in overtime, giving the Oilers a 2-1 victory Monday night. What made it even sweeter was that Pushkarev's first NHL goal had tied the score with 14:11 left in regulation.

Edmonton's 28-year-old defenseman skated down the slot and redirected Ryan Smyth's centering pass from the right circle, giving the Oilers their fourth victory in 14 games.

``This is my first NHL goal, and for me a great moment because it was the winning goal for the team _ which is most important,'' Hejda said. ``Ryan made a great pass and it was not hard for me to score that goal.''

Jarret Stoll had a power-play goal and Dwayne Roloson made 34 saves for the Oilers in the only game on the NHL schedule. Smyth's assist on the winning goal gave him 10 points in seven games after missing 10 contests because of a broken right thumb.

Pushkarev, the Kings' 21-year-old right wing, started the play that led to his tying goal when he bumped rookie defenseman Mathieu Roy off the puck in the left corner. Pushkarev then backtracked toward the Oilers' blue line, got a pass from Lubomir Visnovsky and took a long wrist shot that beat Roloson through a screen.

``We were doing a good job cycling in the corner and shooting at the net, whenever you shoot on the net something can happen,'' Pushkarev said.

Stoll opened the scoring at 7:17 of the second period with his 12th goal, a one-timer from the top of the left circle that beat Mathieu Garon high to the glove side while Brian Willsie was serving a hooking penalty.

The Kings, who had their highest-scoring game of the season in a 7-4 victory at Edmonton on Dec. 18, squandered a good chance to tie it about 7 minutes later when leading goal-scorer Alexander Frolov had Roloson at his mercy on a 2-on-1 rush and chipped the puck wide of the left post with a backhander.

``Rollie was on his game and on top off all the deflections all night long,'' Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. ``He played really well. We needed him to get that game out of him tonight. The other guy (Garon) was pretty good too and made some key saves. We had a lot of chances around the net and nothing to show for it.''

The Oilers could as easily have had a 2-0 lead through one period after a couple of close calls in the final minute. Shawn Horcoff's wrist shot hit the crossbar at the end of a 2-on-1 rush, and Brad Winchester misfired on a short shot from the left of the net that trickled under Garon's legs and hit the far post with one second remaining.

Edmonton came close again about 3 1/2 minutes into the second period when Winchester found Marty Reasoner in the slot with a perfect cross-ice feed from the left boards. Garon kicked his left leg out at the last instant to rob the Oilers center for one of his 27 saves.

``We all wanted to win that game tonight and we worked hard to the end,'' said Garon, who is 1-6 in seven career games against Edmonton. ``When we came back at the end I thought we had a good chance to win. We were good offensively and defensively did not give up too many shots on goal. But in the overtime, a mistake can make a big difference.''

The Kings were 0-for-5 with the man advantage against the Oilers, who have the league's best penalty-killing percentage on the road _ allowing just seven goals in 108 short-handed situations. One of those power plays came after Roloson received a delay-of-game penalty for playing the puck outside the trapezoid behind the net in the first period.

``We had some good scoring bids, but you have to give some credit to Roloson,'' Michael Cammalleri said. ``Matty played really well tonight too, but we have to be able to score more than one goal for him.''

Edmonton's last three games have gone past regulation. They lost 6-5 to Dallas in a shootout last Thursday, then dropped a 3-2 decision at Vancouver the following night.

``It's nice to win an overtime game, because it has been a while,'' said MacTavish, whose team set a franchise record last season with 13 overtime wins. ``The odds have to turn in your favor when you drop as many as we have lately.''