Two Distinctly Different Views of 187 Seconds That Turned a 3-0 Kings Lead Into a 4-3 Loss for the Ages

Frustrated. Upset. Confused. Hurt.

Those were words used by the Kings on Tuesday as they explained their feelings after their dramatic 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues in Game 3 of their playoff series Monday night.

Although the series is not over, the Kings are well aware they let a glorious opportunity slip by, blowing a three-goal third-period lead, and face elimination tonight in Game 4 at the Great Western Forum.

So instead of playing to tie the series at 2-2, the Kings have an unlikely uphill quest, trying to become only the third NHL team to rally from a 3-0 deficit and win a best-of-seven playoff series.

In 1975, the New York Islanders won four in a row to defeat Pittsburgh, 4-3, in a quarterfinal matchup, and in 1942, Toronto bounced back from three games down to beat Detroit in the Stanley Cup finals.

Any hockey fan who watched the Kings’ collapse in Game 3 will remember for years the play that turned the game around.

With a 3-0 lead and goaltender Jamie Storr in apparent control, the Kings had the Blues reeling. Then, with one play, things fell apart.

The Kings’ Ian Laperriere was called for boarding in the St. Louis zone but play continued to the other end of the ice. As the puck moved to the right side of the Kings’ goal, Storr skated to the right side of the crease and stopped the puck for teammate Sean O’Donnell, who skated with it behind the net.

Although play should have stopped because of the delayed penalty call on Laperriere once Storr had possession, the Blues’ Geoff Courtnall continued to charge and knocked Storr’s head into the crossbar.

O’Donnell, saying that Courtnall’s hit was deliberate, pummeled the St. Louis forward behind the Kings’ goal and was given a five-minute major for fighting. Courtnall was given a charging minor, which was offset by Laperriere’s penalty.

“I knew who was going back for the puck,” O’Donnell said. “I knew it was Courtnall. If it was [Pierre] Turgeon or someone, it’s accidental, maybe. But, it’s Geoff Courtnall. That’s what he does. He ran into the goalie. He ran him into the crossbar. . . . I lost my composure, but it was a terrible call. A terrible, terrible call.”

Courtnall’s younger brother, King right wing Russ, agreed with O’Donnell.

“That’s the type of player he is, and exactly what he did is what he’s done for a long time,” Russ said of Geoff.

“He was going to go behind the net and probably could have gotten out of the way but he didn’t choose to. I don’t know if he thought that we would get five minutes but I think he thought that we would react and that they would go on the power play. He’d be a genius if he thought [the Blues would score four goals] like they did.”

Once play resumed, St. Louis-- which had been 0 for 7 on the power play--made a slight adjustment, keeping two players at the blue line. That tactic, along with some mistakes by the Kings, helped the Blues finally break through against Storr.

The Kings killed off the first 1:25 of the power play, but Pascal Rheaume pulled the Blues within 3-1 at 9:59 when he knocked in a rebound of Al MacInnis’ shot from the point.

“I was a bit dizzy [from hitting] my head against the crossbar,” said Storr, who previously had faced only one shot in the third period. “You never want it to slip away like that, but [St. Louis] is so offensively strong that when you give them a chance like that on the power play, they can do the job.”

The Kings’ lead was cut to 3-2 at 11:03 when Jim Campbell made a perfect pass from behind the goal to Brett Hull, who was left alone in the slot because two Kings were caught trying to get the puck from Campbell.

“After their second [goal], I was thinking about [calling a timeout],” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “But I looked and Hull and those guys had just gone off the ice. They didn’t have their No. 1 power play out there, so I figured if we called a timeout, it would give them a rest and a chance to go back out. Then, [what] if something did happen where we needed a timeout later on in the game? There still was a lot of time left.”

With momentum on their side, the Blues tied the score 56 seconds after Hull’s goal when Turgeon deflected a slap shot by MacInnis past Storr at 11:59.

Then at 13:06, with 28 seconds remaining on O’Donnell’s major, St. Louis forward Terry Yake, a former Mighty Duck, scored on a rebound of a shot from the point by Steve Duchesne to give the Blues a 4-3 lead.

“The puck just started to come to the net,” King defenseman Garry Galley said of the Blues’ late power-play success. “We had done a good job of taking their lanes away. MacInnis and Duchesne weren’t getting clear shots at the net. We were doing a better job of handling the traffic coming to the net. Then, once the shots started to get through and the rebounds were there, it seemed like they always had three or four guys standing right in there.

“Once the breakdowns started to come, we started to lose our poise. When a team gets rattled, it really doesn’t matter how many veterans or experienced a team is. Once there’s bleeding, you can’t stop it. So, a game that we should have had, we didn’t get.”