A New King Sure Makes a Difference

The stock market or your bank should pay off so quickly.

The Kings got a return on their two-year, $3.6-million investment in Donald Audette in only 23 seconds Sunday night, and it sent them winging to a 4-1 victory over the Blackhawks.

Audette, technically unemployed until being traded from Buffalo on Friday, was close enough to the doorstep of Chicago goalie Jocelyn Thibault to ring his bell when the pass came from Vladimir Tsyplakov.

A shot was turned back. The Blackhawks’ Paul Coffey was in the way, then Coffey fell, taking Thibault with him. Audette’s rebound went down a wide boulevard into the net, and his first shift as a King was successful.

That it all happened so quickly helped.

“I’m a little tired,” said Audette, who had held out in Buffalo and hadn’t played a game since last spring. “You could see at the end of my shifts that I was exhausted. That was my plan, to keep it short. I knew if I went over 30 or 35 [seconds in a shift], I would be in trouble.”

Instead, the Blackhawks were in trouble, though they came back and tied the score only 2:16 later when Alex Zhamnov scored from the right-wing circle. Goalie Jamie Storr, who has struggled much of the season with injuries and a crisis of confidence, slowed the puck but did not stop it.

At first, it looked like a repetition of Storr’s Thursday and Saturday night performances. In the former, at the Great Western Forum, he struggled so much in an overtime loss to the New York Islanders that he apologized to the coaches afterward. In the latter, at St. Louis, he was yanked after giving up two goals in an 18-second span in the third period of a loss to the Blues.

“I wish I could have stayed in there [in St. Louis], but they had a few scoring chances later, and if I had let in another goal, my confidence might have really been a problem,” said Storr, who has two wins--both over Chicago--in eight decisions.

“Larry [Robinson, the Kings’ coach] just told me he was pulling me to rest me for [Sunday night].”

But after Zhamnov’s goal Sunday, Robinson turned to backup goalie Manny Legace and told him to be ready.

“[Storr] was fighting it,” Robinson said.

He won the fight, with the help of two goals by Glen Murray--one of which broke the 1-1 tie, the other a power-play effort--and one by Luc Robitaille, the usual contributors.

And Storr had a little luck, which he has been missing lately. In the second period, he slowed but did not stop a shot by Bob Probert, which hit the post and scuttled along the goal line, teetering in the red-light region before Storr managed to pull it back into the blue paint of the crease.

In the third period, Probert again had a shot, with a convention of Blackhawks in front of the net. Storr came out to challenge and the puck popped over him . . . right to the Kings’ Olli Jokinen, who recognized the goalie’s distress and made the save.

“Is that who it was?” Storr said. “I just know I made a mistake.”

And, for a change, got away with it.

“Maybe with Christmas coming, we’re going to get a little luck,” Robinson cracked.

Playing Chicago helps, according to Blackhawk Coach Dirk Graham.

“We had a handful of guys who competed tonight, but the percentage of guys who played hard for 60 minutes wasn’t high,” he said.

The Kings’ percentage was higher. Robinson was like a kid with some new toys, plugging in Audette with Tsyplakov and Ray Ferraro on one line, moving rookie Pavel Rosa in with Robitaille and Jozef Stumpel on another, putting Murray with Jokinen and Craig Johnson on a third.

And leaving them alone, something he has seldom done lately.

“When they’re working, why change them?” he said.

The win ended a three-game losing streak, which coincided with Rob Blake’s suspension for hitting Vancouver’s Harry York with a stick.

Blake played Sunday night. You could tell.

“It’s huge,” Robinson said. “It’s so different, because you can see the air of confidence in our dressing room.”