Laperriere Sits and Gets an Eyeful

Center Ian Laperriere, one of the Kings’ top penalty killers, did not play for the first time this season when he sat out Thursday’s 4-0 loss at Phoenix because of a minor eye injury from Wednesday’s 2-2 tie at Dallas.

Laperriere, who said he expects to be in the lineup when the team plays at Edmonton, got a chance to see why the Kings have ranked among the worst penalty teams in the league all season.

“I’ve seen it from the bench and I saw the same thing from the stands,” Laperriere said about the Kings, whose 25 penalty minutes exceeded their 21.2 average. “It seems like our big mistake this year [has been so many penalties] and we can’t figure it out. We can’t take that many penalties and still be in the game.”

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Center Ray Ferraro, who was activated from injured reserve Dec. 31, played in his first game since Dec. 6 and had a couple of scoring chances and finished with one shot on goal.

“Ray looked rusty but he had a couple of good chances and was strong on the draw,” said Coach Larry Robinson, who put Ferraro on a line with Sandy Moger and Dan Bylsma.

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Defenseman Doug Zmolek and forwards Donald MacLean and Matt Johnson were the King scratches against Phoenix, but Robinson questioned some of his moves after the game.

“Our record hasn’t been good in back-to-back games and that’s something we have to strongly look at,” Robinson said. “Maybe some of the guys can’t play as well back to back and maybe we’ll have to look to put some fresh legs in there because we are carrying extra guys.

“I thought in the case of [Zmolek], I put [Phillipe Boucher] in there because he didn’t play [at Dallas] and [Zmolek] was coming back off the flu. I thought that may give us a lift [defensively] but it didn’t.”