Kings Have No Cure For Their Own Blues

The Kings have suddenly become the best doctors in the NHL.

The once-ailing St. Louis Blues and their franchise player Brett Hull took advantage of the Kings’ get-well skills Sunday night when they ended a six-game winless streak with a 7-4 victory in front of 14,813 at the Kiel Center.

Hull scored three goals, including the 500th of his career, and the Blues ended a two-game scoreless streak with a season-high goal output as they stretched the Kings’ winless streak to seven games.

St. Louis, which had lost five consecutive games and six in a row at home, only needed to face the struggling Kings (who finished their trip 0-4) to smooth over a rough week in which the Blues ended a season-long feud between Hull and Mike Keenan by firing their coach and general manager and replacing him with interim Coach Jimmy Roberts and Ron Caron.

“After a turbulent couple of weeks, it’s great to do it here in front of our fans,” said Hull, who had not scored since Dec. 8. “They’ve been waiting long enough.”

All that the impatient St. Louis fans had to do was circle the date on the calendar when the Kings were in town so they could be ready to celebrate.

“It’s the same stuff every time . . . we know what we have to do but it’s like we don’t want to do it,” King center Ian Laperriere said.

In losing for the 12th time in their last 16 games, the Kings played better at times, but again had too many lapses to come close to winning their first road game since Dec. 3.

“It seems like nobody will step up and take the bull by the horns and lead,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “We work hard and try to get something going and then we make a bonehead play. We just stab ourselves in the foot.

“The bottom line is that I don’t know if we’re good enough. We’re going up against teams who are bigger and stronger than us. But yet, we show signs of having the work ethic and then we turn around and show signs of being brain dead.”

The Blues, who had been shut out in five of their previous 10 games, took a 1-0 lead at 8:19 of the first period when defenseman Al MacInnis whacked a shot from the right side of the blue line that bounced high off the pads of King goalie Stephane Fiset and rolled inside the right post.

The Kings fought back to tie the game with a goal by Vladimir Tsyplakov with less than two minutes remaining in the period.

But they then allowed Hull an open shot from the slot with 19 seconds left in the period to virtually hand him his first goal of the game.

The Blues took a 3-1 lead early in the second period when Hull knocked in a slap shot off of King Rob Blake’s stick at the 3:10 mark.

Once again, the Kings rallied with two consecutive goals to tie the game. Ray Ferraro scored his 14th and Kevin Stevens scored his first goal since Nov. 14.

With the score tied at 3-3, the Kings appeared to gain the upper hand when they kept St. Louis from scoring during a 2:55 power play that included a five-on-three advantage for 2:10.

But after being held scoreless on the power play, the Blues got a breakaway goal from Geoff Courtnall at 13:32 of the period to give St. Louis a 4-3 lead.

It was all downhill from there for the Kings, who gave up a goal to Pierre Turgeon--who also had four assists--before the end of the second period and a goal by Stephane Matteau, who deflected in a slap shot by Hull 20 seconds into the third.

“We didn’t play physical against these guys at all . . . they were allowed to roam free all night,” Robinson said. “If it’s a physical game, Turgeon is not as effective a player. Yet, he probably could have been out there in a dress and not have gotten a scratch.”

St. Louis fans finally got a chance to celebrate 10:25 into the third period when Hull beat Fiset from the right circle for his 500th goal and his 26th hat trick.

The goal made Hull only the 24th player to reach the 500 mark.

The Kings received a late goal by Laperriere to finish the scoring.