Kings Hit Some Highs Against Sharks

Perhaps the San Jose Sharks read a bit too much into the absence of injured King defenseman Marty McSorley, trying to manhandle the Kings in games on consecutive nights.

It didn’t work two days ago, and a similar effort backfired in spectacular fashion as the Kings scored a season-high five power-play goals in a 7-5 victory against the Sharks on Saturday at the Forum in front of an announced crowd of 14,701. In all, they were five of eight on the power play.

For the Kings, there was also another modest accomplishment as it was the first time they have won consecutive games since defeating the Islanders on Nov. 16 and following with another victory against Florida on Nov. 18.

San Jose (8-28-4) has lost five consecutive games. All season, the Kings have stressed the importance of beating the so-called lesser teams, those with a sub.-500 record. Now, they will be starting a key four-game trip without McSorley, who is suffering from a strained groin and sore back.

“I hope I can join them later in the trip,” McSorley. “I wanted to play on Friday but it went into a spasm on me.”

But the Kings got big efforts from the veterans and the rookies.

“It’s been a tremendous weekend for us,” said King goaltender Kelly Hrudey, who faced 43 shots. “All the young guys played really, really well, We put a lot of new guys in the lineup and it says a lot for the guys in this room, regardless of their situation.”

It had been a much-needed laugher for the Kings that turned serious by the middle of the third period after the Sharks scored four consecutive goals after trailing 7-1.

Shark center Jamie Baker helped narrow the deficit in distinctive fashion with two consecutive shorthanded goals in the third period, scoring at 4:09 to pull the Sharks to 7-4 and then narrowing the gap by two at 13:03. They were his fifth and sixth goals of the season and five of those goals have come shorthanded, tying him with Florida’s Tom Fitzgerald for the league’s lead.

The Kings (16-16-9) then had to endure several more nervous moments in the final five minutes as they had to kill off consecutive penalties to forward Tony Granato and defenseman Sean O’Donnell.

“We took them a little too lightly after we got the lead and we didn’t play with the same aggressiveness and patience,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “Probably the part I hated most when I was a player was when we were playing with a big lead. It’s tough as a defenseman but even worse as a goalie.”

Said Shark interim coach Jim Wiley: “It’s obvious that we played without any emotion for approximately 33 minutes of the hockey game. From that point on, we played with some emotion and we were on an even par, or better than the other team.”

Very few victories have been easy for them this season, and it had appeared as though it would turn out otherwise after two periods in which the Kings established a 7-2 lead. Seven King players scored and 13 figured in the scoring.

Leading the way was rookie right wing Vitali Yachmenev, who scored once and added two assists, pushing him past Ottawa forward Daniel Alfredsson for the league’s rookie scoring lead. Wayne Gretzky had three points, scoring once and adding two assists, giving him 10 points in the last three games.

What turned the game was a five-minute high sticking major and automatic game misconduct assessed to Shark forward Ulf Dahlen, who cut King defenseman Philippe Boucher in the face with his stick at 4:03 of the second period.

The Kings promptly scored three goals on the major to take a 6-1 lead in the span of 1:26.

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King Notes

Defenseman Marty McSorley (strained groin) sat out his second consecutive game as did forward Pat Conacher (strained back). Defenseman Rob Cowie, who suffered a shoulder injury against the Sharks on Friday, also sat out. Because of the various injuries, the Kings called up 23-year-old left wing Barry Potomski from their minor-league team in Phoenix and he played sparingly on Saturday. With the Roadrunners, he had five goals, seven points and 74 penalty minutes in 24 games.