Kings Find Same Old Problems in New York

To a man, the Kings talked of things being different Wednesday night, 24 hours after a debacle against the Devils across the river.

It had to get better. Well, didn’t it?

Yeah. Right.

“That was probably the worst two games that will be played in the league this year,” said defenseman Rob Blake after the Kings’ 8-3 loss to the Rangers came a night after they were blown away, 7-1, by New Jersey.

“They were the worst two games I’ve seen us play in my 10 years [in the NHL].”

The cross-country flight can’t put this burg behind the Kings fast enough.

“It’s good that you only lose two points,” said Blake’s partner, Mattias Norstrom. “It’s good that you can’t get points taken away for playing . . . like we have the last two games.”

For that matter, for playing the way they did in the first period Wednesday night, when six of the Rangers’ 17 shots found the net behind goalie Jamie Storr. Five of those goals came in a span of 4:58, leaving Storr shellshocked and, when the next period began, a spectator while Stephane Fiset finished up for the second night in a row.

“We decided to leave him in there after the second goal,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “Any time you give up the number of goals in that number of shots, well, you have to make some saves too.”

Storr made few a night after giving up three goals in 14 first-period shots to the Devils.

“The easiest thing to do would be to be pulled after three [goals],” he said of Wednesday’s difficulties. “The hardest thing to do is to stay out there. The rest of the team has to play, why shouldn’t I? They score goals against the whole team, but I guess I’m the one the red light goes on behind.”

It did when Todd Harvey scored 4:58 into the game, but that was a sprinkle.

The storm was yet to come.

Tim Taylor, Harvey again, John MacLean, Mike Knuble and Theoren Fleury rained all over Storr, and from Taylor to Fleury, only 4:58 elapsed. It was the second time in 40 years--the last came in 1985--that the Rangers scored five times in five minutes or less.

Harvey’s second goal came 38 seconds after Taylor’s score.

“For the wheels to fall off that way . . . it’s kind of hard to believe,” Murray said. “We have trust and confidence in the players, and we trusted the players to play better than that. We played 30 good games, and then that 31 and 32. . . .”

Culpability was widespread.

“The first goal was Lapy [Ian Laperriere]. The second was Ziggy [Palffy]. The third was Garry Galley,” Murray said. “We lost individual battles. People got beat in our zone, and [the Rangers] carried it to the net.”

But those three had plenty of company. By game’s end, only Vladimir Tsyplakov came out even on the plus-minus scale, and that was because his appearance on Palffy’s third-period goal matched that on Fleury’s in the first.

The rest of the Kings were in minus-land.

Storr had a hand in his own troubles, but for the second night in a row, the Kings were guilty of turnovers, sloppy defense and general lassitude in falling behind, 6-0.

“It was ugly,” said Donald Audette of the atmosphere in the locker room while the Kings pondered having to play two more periods of a game that was embarrassingly over.

“You can’t say anything about 6-0,” Blake said. “If the guys don’t know, they don’t belong here.”

It took only 1:45 of the second period to make it 7-0, when Michael York scored on a rebound of a shot against Fiset. No. 8 came when MacLean scored again, beating a screened Fiset from long range.

The Kings last gave up eight goals on Oct. 24, 1996, against Edmonton, and consolation scores in the third period by Blake, Marko Tuomainen and Palffy were no consolation at all.

Salvation lies in escaping to the west, after a long, quiet plane ride home.

Then again, Murray believed it lay across the river.

“This isn’t the NFL,” Murray had said in New Jersey. “The good thing about [the NHL] is that you don’t have seven days to brood about your loss.”

Never considered was that things could get worse, and Jet Coach Bill Parcells’ job has to look pretty good to Murray after successive nightmares in New Jersey and New York.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

ROTTEN PERIOD

The New York Rangers jumped to a 6-0 lead over the Kings in the first period:

1--4:58

Todd Harvey

2--13:45

Tim Taylor

3--14:23

Todd Harvey

4--16:46

John MacLean

5--17:46

Mike Knuble

6--18:43

Theoren Fleury

*

DUCKS 4, COLORADO 2

Jeff Nielsen scores twice as Anaheim wins on the road. Page 3

HELENE ELLIOTT

Kings threaten their strong start with two awful outings. Page 4