Montreal Outlasts Kings : Canadiens Kill 8 Power Plays in 3-2 Victory

The Kings went oh-for-the-power-play Tuesday night as they lost to the streaking Montreal Canadiens, 3-2, before a crowd of 16,005, the eighth sellout of the season at the Forum.

That’s 0 for 8 on power-play opportunities, including a crucial 1 minute 24 seconds of a 2-player advantage in the late stages of the final period with Wayne Gretzky, Bernie Nicholls, Luc Robitaille, Dave Taylor and the highest-scoring defenseman in the league, Steve Duchesne, all on the ice.

At least the Kings got off some shots during that 2-player advantage that was brought on by Petr Svoboda’s tripping and Larry Robinson’s slashing penalties. During a couple of the earlier chances, they didn’t even fire.

A lot of the credit, especially for stopping the final 5-on-3 attack, goes to Canadien goalie Brian Hayward, who faced 34 shots.

“I knew he was good, but he was quicker than I thought,” Robitaille said.

Montreal, the hottest team in the league, stretched its winning streak to 5 games. The Canadiens have lost only 2 of their last 21 games. The Canadiens lead the Adams Division with a record of 24-10-6.

As for why the Kings’ power play was unable to convert with all those super scorers outnumbering the defense, Robitaille could only say: “I don’t know. We’re getting shots. We’re even getting the rebounds. That’s what was getting us so mad. We had the chances.

“But I’ll tell you, they played well.

“At least we know that we are getting our chances. Eventually, the puck will go in. We were always in their zone. If we couldn’t even get in there, then we’d be in bad shape.”

King Coach Robbie Ftorek also acknowledged that it was a well-played game against a very good team.

The powerless power play? “The power play is like penalty killing or anything else that has a lot of intangibles,” Ftorek said. “We have the horses, we just have to get them pulling together.

“We’ve got to get everything in sync a little bit. Hopefully, it’ll come together soon.”

The Kings, who had a 3-game winning streak snapped, have an overall record of 24-13-1.

Rookie Mark Fitzpatrick was in goal for the Kings, who have been giving up more than their share of shots lately. Some are bound to find their way into the net. Montreal took 38 shots at Fitzpatrick.

Ftorek said: “I thought Fitzy made some big saves to keep us in there.”

Defenseman Craig Ludwig scored the go-ahead goal for the Canadiens at 3:07 of the third period, beating Fitzpatrick with a left-handed slap shot from above the left point.

Against most any other team in the league, it would have been plenty of time for the Kings to come back.

In the opening minutes of the game, it had looked as if the Kings would be in another shootout, but everyone got a little more defensive after that.

Bob Carpenter put the Kings on the board just 4:19 into the game, directing in a 50-foot shot by Duchesne. Robinson tied it for Montreal, putting in a pass from Bob Gainey at 6:52.

Igor Liba, the Czechoslovakian left winger acquired Dec. 12 from the New York Rangers in a trade for Dean Kennedy, gave the Kings a 2-1 lead with 7:42 to play in the first period when he scored on his first shot for the Kings.

Liba had not played since the trade because he was recovering from a broken finger. He played Tuesday night on the line with Gretzky and Mike Allison. He scored his goal by slipping in a short shot off a pass from Gretzky.

That lead held up until 10:16 of the second period, when Mats Naslund broke toward the Kings’ net, took a lead pass from Robinson and beat Fitzpatrick 1-on-1 to tie it, 2-2.

And it was relatively rough going the whole way.

Claude Lemieux knocked Gretzky to the ice with 33 seconds remaining in the first period. In the second period, Chris Chelios took down Dave Taylor at 13:57. Chelios grabbed Taylor from behind, hooking an arm around Taylor’s neck, and then slammed Taylor to the ice.

Chelios ended up with a total of 5 penalties.

The Kings needed to take advantage of some of those penalties.

As Gretzky said: “This was one of those games when you have to score on the power play to win.”