Playoffs Not Motivation Enough for Kings

According to Gordon Gekko of “Wall Street,” greed is good.

The Kings are particularly greedy this season after having a taste of success only five months ago.

And of failure, courtesy of the St. Louis Blues, who swept them in the first round of the NHL playoffs.

“I think just making the playoffs this year, we can’t be satisfied with that,” King Coach Larry Robinson says. “We’ve got to set our goals higher. That’s the standard we’ve set for ourselves and now we have to play to that standard: of being competitive and making the playoffs. It would be a huge disappointment, not only to the team but to myself and management, and it would be a step backward if we didn’t make it.”

In what they see as a huge step forward, the Kings brought back defenseman Steve Duchesne, who left Los Angeles in 1991 and wandered from Philadelphia to Quebec to St. Louis to Ottawa then back to St. Louis, building up a reputation.

He puts the power in power play, and the Kings need it. They ranked 15th in the NHL last season in that important specialty and converted only 14.2% of their power-play opportunities.

“It’s become a trademark,” Duchesne says of his work with a man advantage, which should bring out the best in Rob Blake and Luc Robitaille on the team’s No. 1 power-play unit. “Here, we’ve got three snappers up front and Blakey and me. It definitely looks like our power play last year in St. Louis with me and Al MacInnis.”

That unit was tied for ninth in the NHL, at 16.8%.

“[Last year] we were fairly successful, but you look at the St. Louis power play with Duchesne and with MacInnis at the point,” Blake says. “The way Duchesne controls it and MacInnis shoots it, that’s kind of the way we want it to happen here.”

Duchesne also had 56 points, fourth among NHL defensemen, and scored 14 goals. Blake had 23 goals and 50 points in winning the Norris Trophy.

Reverse the specialty, and you have another area that must be improved for the Kings to be successful, by last season’s standard or any other.

They were 19th in the NHL in penalty killing, effectively finishing 84.2% of them but spending far too much time a man down. Robinson’s hair gets a bit grayer every time he sees a retaliatory penalty cost the Kings a power-play goal, citing such transgressions as signs of immaturity on a team that needs to mature.

In the playoffs, St. Louis had more discipline. The Kings had 43 penalties for 108 minutes in the four games.

“If the guys don’t learn from this, including myself, then we’re stupid,” center Ray Ferraro said. “How many times do you need to be kicked in the teeth to figure it out? If we get into a series again next year, it will be a shame if nothing is learned from this.”

Yet, silly penalties in exhibition games showed that growth is still needed.

Prevailing wisdom is that more offense is needed too. The Kings need a high-powered forward to carry them through this season and into their new building, the Staples Center, due for occupancy in October 1999.

There have been talks aplenty, with Vancouver about Pavel Bure, with Calgary about Theo Fleury, with the New York Islanders about Ziggy Palffy, but the prices have so far been too high--prospects, goaltenders Stephane Fiset or Jamie Storr and more.

The desired players’ salaries also have been too high.

So for now, the Kings play with an offense that was eighth in the league in scoring, with 227 goals. Winger Glen Murray was the team leader with 29 goals, many of them set up by linemate center Jozef Stumpel, who finished with 79 points.

It’s not that the Kings wouldn’t like to find a 40-goal scorer if they could get one without mortgaging their future, but high-scoring forwards are becoming something of a vanishing breed in the NHL’s scoring slowdown.

Ten teams did not have a player score as many as 30 goals last season, including playoff teams Buffalo, New Jersey, Colorado and Edmonton.

Oh, and Stanley Cup-winning Detroit.

Murray could be pressed by Robitaille, back after missing time because of a stomach injury last season. He scored 16 goals in 57 games and has scored as many as 63 in a season.

Defensively, the Kings gave up 225 goals, tied for ninth in the league, and there is a tendency to delude themselves into thinking that will be alleviated with the addition of Duchesne and Doug Bodger, who was acquired from New Jersey for a draft choice.

“We have one of the best defenses in the league, if not the best,” Duchesne says bravely, but it remains to be seen how that defense will cope with some big-banging teams in the East.

After a 20-point improvement with last season’s young team, the Kings are regarded as comers, a player or two short of contending for a Stanley Cup, but a team on the upswing.

The mission is to make sure it is an upswing and not a pendulum.

“Are the expectations too great?” Robinson asks. “No. To be realistic, if you were a betting person and wanted to know whether to bet on us to win the Stanley Cup, I’d say no. But yet, given the odds, it wouldn’t be a bad bet.”

At 30-1 or so, the odds are long, but they are much shorter than they were at this time last year.

And perhaps longer than they will be a year from now.