Goalies, Lead Fall Apart for the Kings

Jamie Storr went from a perfectly comfortable seat on the bench Sunday night to a spot downrange in a shooting gallery.

And then, perhaps, to temporary incapacitation, at least as far as stopping shots in a hockey game is concerned.

In 25 seconds, the Kings went from a two-goal lead to a 5-5 tie with Colorado when the Avalanche’s Chris Drury and Claude Lemieux scored in the last minute of regulation before an announced 11,294 at the Great Western Forum.

The Kings had fashioned a 5-3 lead on third-period goals by Glen Murray and Yanic Perreault, but the blown advantage earned them only a bad point. The comeback tie earned Colorado a good one, its first after opening the season with four losses in which the Avalanche had scored five goals.

With all of that, the Kings embark on their first long trip of the season and wonder who is going to play goaltender after starter Stephane Fiset suffered a groin injury and left the ice at 7:13 of the third period, and Storr finished the game hobbling after his own groin injury.

Both will be evaluated today, but King trainer Peter Demers said it appeared Storr is the more seriously injured.

Manny Legace, farmed out to Long Beach, should stand by the phone on the road in Chicago.

Maybe Alexey Volkov, playing junior hockey somewhere in Canada for Halifax, too.

That will be settled today, but Sunday night, Coach Larry Robinson had some unsettling concerns, the blown game chief among them.

“When we had the 5-3 lead, on the fourth goal we made two bonehead plays from guys who should know better,” he said.

“Number one, [Jozef Stumpel] turned the puck over at their blue line, instead of getting it in deep, and then Jamie tried to clear it out when he should have just left it for the defense.”

The goal, scored by Drury, came at 19:10 and was set up by a shot from near the blue line by Sylvain Lefebvre. Drury, loitering near the net, tipped the puck past Storr.

Only 25 seconds later, Colorado’s Joe Sakic sent a pass from behind the King net, with Peter Forsberg and Aaron Miller getting sticks on the puck. Storr saved the first shot, but Lemieux was around to poke in the rebound.

Again, there was something of a defensive breakdown on the play, “and a healthy goalie probably would have helped,” Robinson said.

For all of the relative offensive largess, it looked as though the Avalanche’s best effort of the season was about to go for naught.

“It would have been so easy after Perreault’s goal for us to give up and take the loss,” Colorado Coach Bob Hartley said. “It showed a great amount of commitment to come back like that.”

The Avalanche spent most of Sunday night coming back.

Its 1-0 lead, which came on a goal by Adam Deadmarsh, was superseded by goals from Matt Johnson and Mattias Norstrom.

Drury, a rookie, tied it, but Rob Blake broke the 2-2 tie at 13:30 of the second period. Sakic matched that on a disputed goal, shooting the puck off the post to Fiset’s right, then shooting the rebound off the post to Fiset’s left.

The goal lay in the crease only to be swept across the line by Fiset’s stick hand, according to a goal judge.

It was left to Murray to break the tie when he set up near the net and pushed Doug Bodger’s shot from the blue line past Colorado’s Patrick Roy.

Perreault’s fourth goal of the season made it 5-3, but any celebration was premature.

“We played harder than we played in the last two games, but that doesn’t really count if you don’t play hard in the third period,” Murray said. “We played maybe two or three minutes [of the third], but that’s not enough.”

Particularly when it was time to circle the defense around a limping goalie.

“We knew that Storr was hurt the last few minutes when he came in, and we shouldn’t have even been screwing around with the puck,” Murray said. “We didn’t help Storr.”

The taste of the tie was bitter, and it can linger when the Kings begin a five-game trip Wednesday at Florida.

And perhaps put out a Goalie Wanted sign along the way.