Kings Win With Young and Lean Look

With a three-game losing streak and his team basically eliminated from the playoff race, King Coach Larry Robinson figured Saturday night’s game against San Jose was a good time to really give the team’s youth movement a shot.

Not only did the Kings have six players in uniform who played at least one game in the minors this season, but Robinson gave most of them key time on the ice and it paid off with a scrappy 2-1 victory over San Jose before 15,083 at the Forum.

Nathan LaFayette, who was recalled from Syracuse of the American Hockey League on Thursday, scored a short-handed goal and Vitali Yachmenev added a power-play score, and that was all King goaltender Byron Dafoe needed to record his 13th victory of the season and end the team’s four-game winless streak.

Dafoe, who has started the last three games with Stephane Fiset still bothered with a groin/stomach injury, was steady in the net and stopped 34 shots. The Sharks’ only score came when left wing Jeff Friesen knocked in a rebound for a power-play goal midway in the third period.

“Byron was solid in that he made some huge stops for us, especially in the last half of the game,” Robinson said. “But, he’s been doing that all year. It’s nothing new to see him battle like that.”

The Kings, who also had newly acquired winger Glen Murray in the lineup, definitely gave the Sharks a different look from the team that had lost three times against them earlier this season.

Roman Vopat, Jeff Shevalier and LaFayette teamed to form a line of players who had played in the minors this season. Shevalier, who played with Phoenix of the International Hockey League for the first half of the season, and LaFayette also were used on the Kings’ penalty-killing unit, which scored only its fifth short-handed goal of the season.

LaFayette was credited for the score when a slap shot by Shevalier deflected off his skate past San Jose goalie Ed Belfour for his first goal. It gave the Kings a 2-0 lead in the second period.

“I think that this was his best game since he’s been with the club,” Robinson said of LaFayette, who was acquired last season from the New York Rangers. “That’s the guy who we thought we were getting.”

Saturday’s game against the Sharks also was one in which the Kings’ younger players gained more than game experience.

Vopat, who has added some size and toughness since being recalled from Phoenix in February, had to leave the game late in the second period when he suffered a concussion after being sucker-punched by the Sharks’ Dody Wood.

With less than five seconds remaining in the period, Vopat and Wood got tangled during a faceoff, and after falling to the ice Wood got up and knocked a surprised Vopat down with two right hands to the face.

“I don’t know what really happened, he had called me out before [to fight],” Vopat said. “After the faceoff, he just dropped the gloves and gave me the business. . . . I have to be careful next time, so I learned from tonight.”