Defense Is More to Fiset’s Liking

King goaltender Stephane Fiset concedes he was skeptical regarding the effectiveness of the NHL’s decision to crack down on interference calls to help increase scoring over the final eight weeks of the season.

His doubts were justified.

After a 17-day Olympic break, Fiset took to the ice Wednesday night and made 28 saves to help the Kings skate away with a 1-1 tie against the Detroit Red Wings before 19,983 at Joe Louis Arena.

Vladimir Tsyplakov scored 13 seconds into the first period to give the Kings a 1-0 lead, and Fiset was dominant in shutting down the Red Wings, who played without Canadian Olympic team members Brendan Shanahan and Steve Yzerman because of their late arrival from Japan Monday night.

“They were supposed to open up the game, but 1-1? . . . I think that they are going to have to try something else,” said Fiset, who has given up only five goals in his last 327 minutes. “I don’t think [tougher interference rules] are going to change anything. It’s really pretty stupid what they are trying to do. I think the game is all right [without making changes].

“It’s obvious that the goalies are getting better and teams are playing better in their defensive zone. That’s why teams don’t score that much. [The NHL] is going to try everything but I don’t think it’s going to change anything. Maybe if they put a soccer goal [on the ice] they might get more goals.”

Detroit, which outshot the Kings, 29-17, scored its only goal early in the third period on Brent Gilchrist’s 12th of the season. Right wing Doug Brown set up the goal with a nifty pass between his legs to Gilchrist, who was alone at the top of the crease.

Other than that, Fiset controlled the game. He stopped four shots by Brown and three each by Nicklas Lidstrom, Darren McCarty and Kris Draper.

“I thought [Fiset] really concentrated well tonight,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “He really focused in on the puck. On their goal, he was unlucky because someone had bumped him and he wasn’t able to get his position. Also, we didn’t do a very good job on clearing the slot.”

The Kings, who now are 20-1-2 when they score first, took an early lead before most of the Detroit crowd had been seated. Tsyplakov, who needs one more goal to tie his single-season high, scored his 15th when he beat Detroit goaltender Chris Osgood from the left circle after a perfect set-up pass by Jozef Stumpel.

That turned out to be the Kings’ only shot on goal for nearly 11 minutes as Detroit kept the play out of its zone. The Red Wings, who had a couple of solid chances by Bob Rouse and Mathieu Dandenault snuffed out by Fiset, outshot the Kings in the period, 8-4.

In the second period, the Kings spent a lot of time with their penalty-killing unit on the ice as they had to withstand three Detroit power plays. The Kings were outshot in the period, 11-4, but clung to their one-goal lead heading into the third.

“We certainly didn’t shoot the puck enough,” said Robinson, whose team went nearly 14 minutes without a shot on goal, from the end of the second period into the third. “We only had eight shots in the first two periods. I thought that we should have at least tried to shoot more because, if anything, Osgood looked like he was fighting the puck a little bit.”

Detroit finally ended the Kings’ shutout hopes 3:50 into the third period on Gilchrist’s goal. But the Red Wings were kept scoreless the rest of the way as Fiset improved to 20-15-8.

“[The Kings] are playing a real good team game,” said Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman, who coached Robinson when he played for Montreal. “They are playing real solid defense and it’s better to play stingy defense than to allow a lot of good chances. . . . They are also getting good goaltending and that’s important.

The Kings, who entered the break as the NHL’s hottest team, are 9-1-2 over their last 12 games, and they remain in the fifth place in the Western Conference playoff race.

But they do not get long to rest because they play at Chicago tonight, and they are 1-6-1 this season in the second game of back-to-back sets.