Kings End Trip With 3-1 Win

The Chicago Blackhawks have the best record in the NHL.

No problem for Daniel Berthiaume.

They hadn’t lost at home in a month.

Not to worry.

They have one of the noisiest, most intimidating arenas with one of the smallest ice surfaces in the league.

No big deal to Berthiaume.

The Kings’ goalie shrugs off all such concerns as smoothly as he fended off shots in a 3-1 victory Sunday at Chicago Stadium before 18,472.

Berthiaume stopped 37 of 38 Chicago shots, holding the fort in the furious final period when the Blackhawks bombarded him, outshooting the Kings, 16-3, but still failing to score.

It all seems familiar.

Two months ago, Berthiaume beat the Blackhawks here, 2-0. And in another frantic final period at the same end of the ice, the Kings’ goalie denied a Chicago team that outshot the Kings, 14-2.

So what gives with this building, Daniel?

“I don’t know,” he said with a large smile. “I try not to know. I just come and play.

“The fans here are great and loud. They (the Blackhawks) are shooting at you from everywhere. It’s fun to play.”

Some fun.

“There are a lot of shots because of the closeness of the ice,” Coach Tom Webster said. “That gets him (Berthiaume) into the game and he responds to it.”

In winning his third game in a row to improve his record to 13-5, Berthiaume was helped by a defense that left few rebounds lying around for second and third shots.

“They let me see all the shots,” said Berthiaume of his teammates.

When the Kings left home a week ago, they seemed to have about as much of a future as 1990.

They had won only two games in December. Injuries had cut deeply into the club. Their penalty unit was a power play in name only. And it seemed more likely they would be overtaken by the clubs immediately below them in the Smythe Division than that they would catch the front-running Calgary Flames.

A week later, they soar home with all the optimism of the new year.

They won four of five games on the trip to improve to 22-14-5. They weathered a killer schedule that demanded four games in five nights, winning the last three in a row to move within two points of the idle Flames.

They found additional help in the minors from Jim Thomson and Sylvain Couturier.

And they even found their missing power Sunday, scoring twice on four power plays after missing on 14 of their previous 15 attempts over the last five games.

Chicago, entering the game 5-0-1 over its previous six games at home, seemed ready to continue the streak in the first period when Jeremy Roenick scored his 19th goal to give the Blackhawks the early lead.

But before the period was over, Steve Duchesne had scored his 11th of the season on a power play to tie the game.

The Kings took the lead in the second period when Couturier fed Thomson, who scored from the slot. It was his third NHL goal in 34 games, the previous two coming as a member of the Washington Capitals.

“I don’t get too many,” Thomson said. “It’s great to be here. I just watch how they (the Kings) play, look at their roster and follow their footsteps.”

Bob Kudelski added his 14th goal on another power play later in the second period.

Despite the loss, the Blackhawks, at 28-14-3, remain atop the Norris Division by nine points over the runner-up St. Louis Blues. But that fact provided little consolation on a night when Coach Mike Keenan, angry with what he saw unfolding before him, benched his star defenseman, Chris Chelios for a 23-minute span, starting with the final eight minutes of the second period.

That is a common Keenan tactic when he is unhappy, but it didn’t make the move any easier for Chelios.

“It’s pretty embarrassing, but there’s nothing I can do,” said Chelios, who came to Chicago in the off-season in a trade for Denis Savard, who had his share of clashes with Keenan.

“You sit people for different reasons,” Keenan said. “We weren’t getting production out of our power play. That’s a pretty good reason by itself.”

No argument there. The Blackhawks were zero for seven in that department.

“I love it,” said the Kings’ Larry Robinson of the victory. “It gives us a lot of satisfaction to beat one of the best teams. And this is not the easiest place to play.”

He might get an argument there from Berthiaume.