Kings Rain a Bit on San Jose’s Playoff Parade

The drought is over.

Sure, it’s too late. The playoff crops are already pretty well burned, but Vladimir Tsyplakov had two goals and Donald Audette one in the Kings’ 3-2 win over San Jose at the Great Western Forum, and that kind of scoring qualifies as a deluge by recent standards.

That the Kings also spent a bit of Thursday night getting even instead of just mad was a departure from form in a victory that ended a three-game losing streak.

They had won only one of their last six.

As has frequently been the case this season, the victory was not completely one to savor. Center Jozef Stumpel was a victim of a Bryan Marchment specialty--legs taken out from under him--in the second period. Stumpel sustained a sprained knee ligament on the play and will undergo an MRI today.

“No, I think it was just one of those plays,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “Stumpel had the puck at his feet and Bryan just came into him.”

Still, payback came less than four minutes later when Olli Jokinen checked Marchment into the Kings’ bench.

“I just saw a San Jose sweater over by our bench,” Jokinen said.

“Well, I had to make sure I kept my head up the rest of the game because he might come after me.”

The duel between San Jose’s Alex Korolyuk and Rob Blake took a bit longer to settle and was somewhat less satisfying for the Kings.

Korolyuk and Blake had tangled in the first period, and Blake got some help from his defense partner, Mattias Norstrom, who spun Korolyuk around on one play.

Blake bided his time, then hammered Korolyuk with a cross-check at 8:40 of the third period, punctuating it with another that took Korolyuk’s helmet off and earned Blake two minutes in the penalty box.

The Sharks’ Joe Murphy scored only 48 seconds into the power play, tipping a shot by Bill Houlder past goalie Stephane Fiset to cut the King lead to 3-1.

The Kings deemed Murphy’s celebration a bit excessive, earning him an elbow from Matt Johnson and leading to yet another power play, this time unsuccessful.

“I think Murph was reacting to some jibing from our bench,” Robinson said. “I thought he thought it was coming from me.”

It wasn’t.

Tsyplakov’s goals were his first since Dec. 26.The first came at 10:08 of the opening period when he took a Ray Ferraro pass from the end boards and backhanded the puck off the left post and past San Jose’s Mike Vernon for a 1-0 lead.

“It’s been 34 games,” said Tsyplakov, who added that there was no pressure.

Sure. But the goals were only his ninth and 10th of the season. Last season, he had 18.

“This has been the worst season of my career,” he said..

Audette ended an eight-game goal drought--his longest as a King--by converting a pass from Ferraro only 3:40 later, and the Kings had a 2-0 lead for the first time since anyone could remember.

It also was a triumph for the line of Tsyplakov, Audette and Ferraro.

“That was the line I played on when I first got here,” said Audette, traded by Buffalo to the Kings on Dec. 18.

He scored a goal in his first game, playing on that line.

Fiset made the 2-0 lead stand early in the second period, even under an eight-shot onslaught in the first four minutes that included a three-shot barrage during a San Jose power play.

Then Tsyplakov gave him a bit more breathing space with his second goal, taking a pass from Blake scant feet in front of Vernon.

The extra goal proved to be the game-winner when San Jose’s Jeff Norton banged a rebound off Fiset’s right leg into the net with 15.6 seconds to play.

The win brought the Kings to within six points of Edmonton for the eighth and final spot in the Western Conference playoffs

And it was costly to San Jose, which has eyes on a fifth-place finish and all of the playoff import that goes with it. The Sharks, who clinched a playoff spot Tuesday night, are three points behind the Mighty Ducks, whom they play tonight.

“We were flat,” San Jose Coach Darryl Sutter said. “We just traded scoring chances, and we can’t get into that. I’m anxious to see how we play tomorrow night.”

Robinson is just eager to see if it’s still raining today.