Winning Getting Infectious

The way the sellout Forum crowd celebrated after the Kings defeated the New Jersey Devils, 4-1, Saturday night, one would think the team’s recent success is starting to catch on.

Not only did 16,005 show for the Kings’ third sellout this season, but they were treated to an impressive win as the Kings completed a two-game sweep of the Devils behind goals by Vladimir Tsyplakov, Luc Robitaille, Yanic Perreault and Ian Laperriere.

King goaltender Stephane Fiset made 19 saves as he defeated New Jersey for the second time in less than four weeks. Fiset blanked the Devils, 3-0, in New Jersey on Nov. 4.

“[The crowd] was awesome, a 16,000 sellout is great,” King defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “We haven’t had too many of those. Especially last year. But this year, we’re getting more and more people and we can feel them behind us. It really helps.”

The Kings, 9-0 when they score first, improved to 12-9-5 overall, 9-4-2 in their last 15 games.

With the Devils playing their second game in two nights, the Kings got the jump offensively. Jozef Stumpel pointed the team in the right direction with a nice set-up pass to Robitaille less than a minute into the game, but New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur made the save.

The Kings’ early pressure paid off not two minutes in when Perreault fired a shot from the slot that bounced off Brodeur’s pads to Tsyplakov, who banged in the rebound from the left circle to put the Kings ahead, 1-0.

“There’s a lot different in his game, he’s getting involved and he’s skating a lot better than he did,” King Coach Larry Robinson said of Tsyplakov. “There’s a lot of jump in his step. The three of them [Tsyplakov, Glen Murray and Perreault] mesh really well.”

The Kings continued to outhit the Devils and, with back-to-back power-play opportunities, had several chances to pad their lead. Both Stumpel and Philippe Boucher hit the right post.

Still, the first period ended with the Kings holding a 10-5 edge in shots but only a 1-0 lead.

New Jersey, which had not lost at the Forum to the Kings since Nov. 3, 1993, started the second period more forcefully and drew three consecutive penalties. The Kings came within nine seconds of killing off all three, but the Devils tied the score at 12:42 when Dave Andreychuk scored on an assist from Doug Gilmour.

The Kings caught a break later in the period when New Jersey’s Scott Niedermayer was called for roughing against Craig Johnson. With time running out on the Kings’ power play, Stumpel made a play that not too many in the league could make.

After skating inside the Kings’ blue line, Stumpel led Robitaille with a perfect pass between the Devils’ Scott Stevens and Gilmour. Robitaille did the rest, scoring his 13th goal of the season from the slot to give the Kings a 2-1 lead with 3:42 left in the period. It was the Kings’ first power-play goal in 14 chances spanning five games. “All in all, we created a lot of our own chances and you don’t get that many against a team like New Jersey,” said Robinson, a former assistant with the Devils. “You certainly don’t get a chance to beat Brodeur four times.”

The Kings put a virtual stranglehold on the outcome as Murray made a nifty pass around a Devil defender to Perreault, who scored his team-high 15th goal 4:40 into the period.

The Kings wrapped up the scoring shortly after killing another New Jersey power play. Murray skated out of the penalty box, took a pass from Dan Bylsma then fed it to Laperriere, who scored his fourth goal at 8:58.

It was the Kings’ second victory in four games against the NHL’s elite; they won at Colorado, lost at Dallas and tied the Blues in St. Louis before Saturday’s triumph.

“Last year, instead of thinking of winning, we would have thought, ‘Let’s not lose by too much,’ ” said King defenseman Rob Blake, who was selected to the Canadian Olympic team before the game.

Next up for the Kings will be a three-game trip that begins Wednesday at Montreal.