Stumpel Sizzles for Kings

King center Jozef Stumpel may be one of the NHL’s most underrated players, but to the Calgary Flames he’s the next Mario Lemieux.

Stumpel scored three goals and added an assist to lead the Kings to a 6-3 victory over Calgary on Tuesday night, giving him 10 points in four games against the Flames this season.

“Jozef Stumpel was amazing tonight,” said defenseman Rob Blake, who scored the eventual winning goal thanks to Stumpel’s third-period assist before 15,815 at Canadian Airlines Saddledome. “He’s been the reason for our big turnaround.”

Stumpel’s hat trick was his second in six NHL seasons and his four points gave him 57, putting him on the heels of the league’s scoring leaders. In 10 career games against the Flames, Stumpel has five goals and 15 points.

“Whenever you score a hat trick or have a game with four points, it’s obviously a great game, but what makes me more happy is that we won,” said Stumpel, who has 16 points in his last 10 games.

After their seven-game unbeaten streak ended Monday night in a 1-0 loss at Edmonton, the Kings surely did not take the easy route back to their winning ways.

With Frederic Chabot getting his seventh start of the season in goal, the Kings started off strong. Garry Galley helped give the Kings a 1-0 lead when he fed Stumpel with a perfect clearing pass two minutes into the game.

After Calgary’s Hnat Domenichelli scored the first of his two goals at 2:33, Glen Murray responded 32 seconds later to put the Kings back on top at 2-1.

The Kings took a 3-1 lead early in the second period when Vladimir Tsyplakov stole the puck from Calgary’s Cory Stillman, which led to a perfect give-and-go play between Stumpel and Yanic Perreault, with Stumpel scoring his second goal at 4:30.

Instead of cruising to their fourth victory against Calgary this season, however, the Kings allowed the Flames to get back in the game with two goals over a six-minute span.

Domenichelli and James Patrick scored for the Flames, with Michael Nylander getting assists on both goals. That’s when King Coach Larry Robinson replaced Chabot with Jamie Storr, and the move worked as Calgary failed to mount any consistent offensive pressure the rest of the game.

“I thought that [Chabot] was fighting a little bit and he was back in the net a lot more than he usually is,” Robinson said. “I actually asked [assistant] Don Edwards upstairs if they saw the same thing I saw and he agreed.”

In the third period, the Kings took control with Stumpel and Blake leading the way. They teamed midway through the period to score the Kings’ first power-play goal in 14 man-advantage chances on a play sure to make the team’s highlight reel at the end of the season.

With Stumpel controlling the puck at the left point, Blake sneaked behind the Flames’ defense and knocked a perfect feed from Stumpel past Calgary goalie Dwayne Roloson to give the Kings a 4-3 lead at 9:12.

The Kings increased their lead at 10:36 when Russ Courtnall took in a pass from Ray Ferraro and scored from the slot for his fifth goal. Stumpel completed his impressive performance with a rebound goal after a shot by Galley at 16:44.

Storr, who played only 21:09, picked up the victory to improve to 5-2. For the Kings, it was their first win in the second of back-to-back games this season, and they are 18-1-1 in games in which they score first.

“We didn’t play perfect hockey for 60 minutes, but we got the job done,” said Storr, who made 12 stops in the third period. “They made it easy on me. I didn’t have to make too many saves and a lot of them were from the point. . . . I mean we scored six goals [on only 23 shots], we should get the win.”

Robinson, however, said the Kings still must play better if they want to compete against the league’s better teams over the last third of the season.

“We started off well, and everybody was playing like we wanted them to in playing in the system,” Robinson said about the Kings’ strong first 30 minutes of play. “Then all of a sudden, we started trying to take it easy. . . . It’s disappointing that we had to do what we did in order to win the hockey game.”