Kings Have More in Storr for Blackhawks Again, 5-0

It was Jamie Storr in “The Goalie Who Ate Chicago, The Sequel,” and it followed a Hollywood formula that has been working since the advent of talkie:

If you have a good script, why fool with the ending?

Storr came off a month of rehabilitation Saturday night and turned in 21 saves in beating the Blackhawks, 5-0, helping end a six-game Kings’ losing streak.

He had suffered a groin injury Oct. 18.

Been there, done that. Dec. 22 of last year, actually, when Storr came off rehabilitation for, yes, a groin injury.

And, you guessed it, he beat Chicago, 1-0, for the first shutout of his career.

“The first period, I was making all kinds of mistakes, missing the puck and sending it to the wrong man, but then I settled down,” Storr said.

He was the beneficiary of some creative coaching Saturday night, the product of necessity and recent futility.

With so many centers on the roster, and so few wingers available, the Kings played musical chairs with their lines, and when the music stopped, Nathan LaFayette found himself at right wing.

When it started again, it was to celebrate his second goal of the season--and first as a wing--scored at 11:45 of the first period.

Working in the Chicago zone, Yanic Perreault--something unusual Saturday, a center playing center--beat Doug Gilmour on a faceoff and got the puck to Steve Duchesne, who fired it on goal.

LaFayette and Craig Johnson were set up on goalie Jocelyn Thibault’s doorstep, and it was left for LaFayette to deflect the puck home for a 1-0 lead.

Duchesne has assists in six of the last nine games.

The line worked once, so why not again?

It was Johnson’s turn in the second period, scoring his second goal of the season from four feet in front of Thibault.

He got there to take a pass from Perreault, who had gotten the puck from LaFayette. He had won it in a corner scrum with Brad Brown, kicking it to Perreault.

It was LaFayette’s first assist of the season, and his second came on the game’s final goal, scored by Ray Ferraro on a garbage-time power play.

Goal III was something of a novelty, also coming on a power play when Glen Murray took a pass from Vladimir Tsyplakov, who was camped out behind the Chicago goal.

The Kings have nine power-play goals, four in their last four games.

Duchesne picked up another assist on the play, his 300th point as a King, and Perreault probably should have had one for screening Thibault and jumping high in the air to make sure he was out of the crease on the play.

After limping to the season’s quarter-pole, the Kings picked up the pace with the win going into a six-day hiatus. After that, they have a chance to do something they haven’t done all season: win two games in a row.

“It was huge,” Coach Larry Robinson said. “I don’t know about these guys, but it takes a big load off the backs of the coaches.”

Storr turned in several sparkling saves, the most glittering of which came in the second period when Dan Cleary skated in from Storr’s left, getting him to commit and sending in the puck to Mike Maneluk on the left wing. Storr wrenched his body back, went prone and barely got his blocker on the puck, ending the threat.

The loss was Chicago’s ninth in 12 games--two ended in ties--and if stamina was a problem, Storr got a break in the third period, when the two teams took out their frustrations on each other, creating a population explosion in the penalty box.

Fight I involved the Kings’ Ian Laperriere and and Trent Yawney, and by the time the card was finished, three fights later, four Chicago players and three Kings were watching what was left of their teams play out the string.

In all, Chicago had 11 third-period penalties, many of them by repeat offenders. The Kings had six.

“A lot of that was frustration over the call against Yawney,” Chicago Coach Dirk Graham said. “[Referee Dan Marouelli] told me that they agreed to drop gloves and fight, but I just didn’t see it that way at all.”

Olli Jokinen took advantage of the game’s waning moments to score his fourth goal of the season, and third in the last four games, to make it 4-0. Ferraro’s goal finished the scoring and Storr completed the shutout.

“It was good, but it was also tough because when you’ve got momentum, you want to finish it off,” Storr said. “Those last five minutes were long.”

And the next six days will be short.