LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- Jason Labarbera is making a strong

pitch to take over the Los Angeles Kings' starting goalie spot.

Staked to a trio of early goals, Labarbera won for the third

time in as many starts this season as the Kings finished an

impressive homestand with a 3-1 victory over the Columbus Blue

Jackets.

Unable to stick with the New York Rangers after being drafted by

them in 1998, Labarbera has found a home in Los Angeles and is

providing a big challenge for Mathieu Garon, who was signed as a

free agent and was the preseason candidate to start in net.

Labarbera stopped 19-of-20 shots Sunday and fell just shy of his

first career shutout when he allowed a goal to Nikolai Zherdev

midway through the third. However, the damage already was done

by the Kings, who finished a five-game homestand 4-1-0.

Derek Armstrong notched a power-play goal to open the scoring at

8:15 of the first period and Michael Cammalleri, who assisted

on Armstrong's tally, added another man-advantage goal near the

end of the stanza.

Cammalleri coraled a pass from Pavol Demitra just inside the

blue line and skated in untouched on Marc Denis before

unleashing a low slap shot from the right faceoff circle for a

2-0 lead.

Seconds after the Blue Jackets fought through a penalty in the

second, Alexander Frolov made it 3-0 by taking a feed from Sean

Avery and firing a shot past Denis from the slot.

Denis made 28 saves for Columbus, which lost the last three

games of its four-game road trip.