In End, It’s a Bloody Good Win for Kings

It was a bad trade, any way you look at it. A thoroughbred for a Thoroughblade.

Rob Blake for, uh, Brantt Myhres.

The heart and soul of the Kings for someone who started the season with the Kentucky Thoroughblades of the American Hockey League, for an afterthought in San Jose.

It’s what the Kings faced at 13:49 of the first period Saturday night, when Blake and Myhres were dismissed after an incident that left the Kings’ Mattias Norstrom bloody and his teammates unbowed.

The Kings withstood skirmishes the rest of the night in a 2-0 victory that put them within two points of the Sharks for the final spot in the Western Conference playoff race.

Jamie Storr stopped 27 shots and Luc Robitaille scored twice to lead the Kings. Robitaille’s 28th and 29th goals of the season gave him 507 for his career and tied him with Jean Beliveau for 24th in NHL history.

Both came before things got ugly on a Shark power play. Norstrom, fresh off a punishing check of Alex Korolyuk, was skating to the bench on a line change when he was headed off by Myhres.

More properly, by the butt end of Myhres’ stick, which opened a cut over Norstrom’s right eye and started a blood flow down his face.

“I never saw him,” said Norstrom, who received a couple of stitches in his eyebrow. “I don’t know where he came from. I was halfway on the bench, and at first I thought it was somebody coming off our bench [by accident].”

Blake was unwilling to let the blow go unchallenged.

“It was just . . . you can’t just sit there and watch that stuff,” he said. “We were both changing at the time and no one saw what really happened. He came off their bench right onto our bench.”

And never got back.

Blake ended up with stitches on a knuckle of the middle finger of his left hand--”I hit a helmet,” he said, laughing. “I hope it was his and not Matty’s”--for his role as third man in on the fight.

Myhres and Blake were dismissed for the evening.

“I told Kerry [Fraser, the referee], what’s to keep one of our guys who doesn’t play a lot from going after [Jeff] Friesen?” Coach Larry Robinson said, using the Sharks’ leading scorer in his analogy.

“I know the [third-man] rule, but he has to have some discretion in applying it. They use discretion with other rules.”

Said San Jose Coach Darryl Sutter, whose team has lost the first two games of a league-record 10-game, 18-day trip: “I didn’t understand either of the penalties.”

What he did understand is that the Kings were ahead, 2-0, at the time and stayed there.

An announced 13,434 saw the Kings get off to a quick start on Robitaille’s first goal, which came on a power play.

Steve Duchesne started things with a pass to Donald Audette. From there the puck was directed to Jozef Stumpel, then to Robitaille, who popped it past Mike Vernon from the right-wing side of the net.

Goal No. 2 came when Stumpel sent the puck to Olli Jokinen, playing an unaccustomed wing. Jokinen slid it across the crease, in front of Vernon to Robitaille, who scored again no more than inches from where his first came.

From that point, it became a matter of helping preserve Storr’s fourth shutout of the season and sixth of his young career.

Storr learned late in the afternoon that he was starting because Stephane Fiset had experienced soreness during the morning skate.

In the end, the effect of Blake’s absence was mitigated.

For a night, at least.

“I wouldn’t think that it would be any more,” said Blake, who suffered through a three-game suspension for a game misconduct earlier in the season.

“I don’t even know why it was called ‘third man in a fight.’ It wasn’t really a fight.”

Myhres is another story.

“I think the young man is going to be in big trouble,” Robinson said.

For a night, so were the Sharks.