Kings Can’t Hold the Avalanche

If only the Kings could play against the rest of the NHL as well as they do against the Colorado Avalanche.

Despite playing their first game without defenseman Rob Blake, the Kings stayed even with the defending Stanley Cup champions for two periods before losing, 5-2, in front of 13,388 Saturday night at the Forum.

To avoid its third consecutive loss to the Kings, Colorado needed outstanding individual efforts in the third period by Rene Corbet and Adam Deadmarsh to beat King goalie and former Avalanche starter Stephane Fiset, who stopped 34 of 38 shots.

With Blake out at least four weeks because of a broken hand suffered in a 5-2 victory over Phoenix on Thursday, the Kings made a couple of key defensive breakdowns in the third period.

“Our defensemen tried to do too much with the puck and got beat one on one,” King Coach Larry Robinson said.

“We didn’t play that bad except for a couple of bonehead plays and [defenseman John] Slaney happened to be involved with both of them.”

Corbet, who sat out the previous three games after sustaining a concussion against Detroit, broke a 2-2 tie by picking off a pass by Slaney near center ice and beating Fiset with a backhand from the slot 3:40 into the third period.

It was the forward’s sixth goal.

“I was trying to hit the puck up the middle instead of hitting it off the boards,” Slaney said.

With nearly 11 minutes remaining, Deadmarsh got past Slaney at the right circle and beat Fiset from the slot to give the Avalanche a 4-2 lead.

“Unfortunately, [the mistakes hurt the team], you try to say forget about it and try not to make them again,” Slaney said. “But it hurts.”

In his first start against his former team on Dec. 7, Fiset made 28 saves before leaving because of dehydration with a 3-1 lead early in the third period. Byron Dafoe replaced Fiset and the Kings held on for a 4-2 victory.

Fiset stopped 15 first-period shots on Saturday, including Deadmarsh’s attempt from outside the left post.

But Colorado goalie Craig Billington, who started instead of Patrick Roy, stopped breakaways by the Kings’ Eddie Olczyk and Brad Smyth to keep the first period scoreless. Billington was making consecutive starts for the first time since joining Colorado from Florida in the September waiver draft.

Roy, who also did not play against the Kings on Dec. 7, was given the night off before a five-game stretch that includes a home matchup with Western Conference leader Dallas tonight and showdowns next week with Philadelphia and the New York Rangers.

Colorado center Stephane Yelle scored the game’s first goal and his fourth of the season from the right circle, deflecting a slap shot by Uwe Krupp past Fiset 1:19 into the second period.

Then, following a roughing penalty on the Kings’ Jaroslav Modry, the Avalanche took a 2-0 lead on a power-play rebound goal by Keith Jones at 1:56. Jones converted his own rebound for his 11th goal after Fiset stopped Mike Ricci at the edge of the crease.

That’s when the Kings roared back behind their checking line of Ian Laperriere, Dan Bylsma and Barry Potomski.

After Potomski kept the puck in the Kings’ zone, Laperriere, from the left circle, found Bylsma with a perfect pass into the slot to cut Colorado’s lead to 2-1 at 6:43.

The Kings tied the game at 2-2 on Kai Nurminen’s sixth goal of the season at 8:42 on an assist from center Neal Broten.

The Avalanche had an empty net goal by Valeri Kamensky in the third period.