Kings Turn 12 Shots Into a Dramatic Tie

Like a thief in the night armed only with a butter knife, the Kings stole a point from the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night at Miami Arena.

The Kings established all-time team lows for shots on goal in a game (12) and in a period (zero), but were able to salvage a miserable game with late third-period goals by Craig Johnson and Jozef Stumpel to tie the Panthers, 2-2, before 14,703.

Johnson scored his second goal of the season with nearly nine minutes left in regulation and Stumpel scored his sixth with 14 seconds remaining. Stumpel’s score was set up by a perfect centering assist from Luc Robitaille after the Kings had pulled goaltender Stephane Fiset with less than a minute left.

“It’s pretty good to get a point, but if we played the whole game like we did the last 10 minutes, I think we would have won,” said Stumpel, who ended a four-game scoreless streak with a goal and an assist to give him a team-high 15 points.

For the second consecutive game, Fiset, who finished with 24 saves, made enough plays to keep the Kings close. They left Florida with three points after rallying to defeat Tampa Bay, 3-1, on Sunday.

“I’m just trying to do my job out there. . . . I know the guys are going to break out soon with three-, four-, or five-goal games,” Fiset said.

“I wasn’t too concerned with [the first period] because the score was 0-0 and that’s pretty good to me.”

The King offense was nearly nonexistent for much of the game as it failed to record a shot on Florida goaltender Mark Fitzpatrick until 9:45 into the second period.

Right wing Brad Smyth registered the Kings’ first shot during a second-period power play. The Kings’ final total of 12 broke the previous low mark of 13 done twice before.

“If we knew why we [start slow] we would fix the problem,” forward Ian Laperriere said. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t think that we played that badly in the first period. We didn’t get enough shots. That’s our problem.”

King Coach Larry Robinson was visibly upset after the game and said he may begin having harder practices to get better efforts in games.

“I wasn’t happy with the effort,” said Robinson, who ripped his team during the two intermissions. “I think in two games, we got maybe 25 minutes of hockey out of a possible 120 minutes. We can fault [the team] for not putting in the effort. Tonight we put in seven minutes of hockey, and that was the last seven minutes [of regulation].”

Florida led, 2-0, on a second-period goal by Steve Washburn and a third-period score by Jody Hull before the Kings began to put forth the effort Robinson wanted.

Starting with more pressure up front, the Kings kept the play in the Panther zone with shorter and more basic passes. This attack put Florida in retreat and the Kings scored their first goal on a rebound by Johnson after a blocked blue line shot from defenseman Sean O’Donnell.

The play was started when Stumpel won a face-off against Florida’s Dave Gagner. Johnson got the score when he charged hard to the net and knocked in a rebound with 8:56 to play.

With a one-goal lead, the Panthers struggled against the revived Kings, who were helped by several key saves from Fiset. The Kings tied the score when Robitaille was left alone behind the Panther net and found Stumpel in front of the crease for the goal.

The Kings, who were 0 for 3 in power-play opportunities, outshot Florida, 9-8, over the final 25 minutes, but that isn’t good enough for Robinson, who made several line changes before the third period.

“I was looking for something . . . anything to get us going,” Robinson said. “I don’t think I ever saw a group of guys who miss the net or just do not want to shoot the puck.”

In overtime, both teams had good scoring chances, but Fitzpatrick made nice glove saves on shots by Rob Blake and Sandy Moger, and Fiset stopped a loose puck under his backside.

The tie ended a two-year road losing streak against the Panthers, who had outscored the Kings, 9-2, in their last two games at Miami.