Kings Make Blues Look Like Champs

The Kings were just the thing needed to chase the blues out of the Blues.

Better than Prozac to handle the depression that has dogged the St. Louis Blues in a miserable homestand.

Better than a sedative to calm a team that had spent the previous day’s practice fighting among themselves.

The most crucial King trip of the season, one that began with them blowing a two-goal lead in a tie at Calgary, made its way into the Kiel Center on Monday night, and only a consolation-prize goal by Jozef Stumpel prevented Blues’ goalie Jamie McLennan from accomplishing an NHL rarity: a shutout without breaking a sweat.

As it was, 16,182 saw a 5-1 Blues victory in which two goals by Pavol Demitra and scores by Craig Conroy and Pierre Turgeon traveled about a combined 12 feet, and another was a blue-line special by Jamie Rivers, his first of the season.

All that was made easier by a lackluster King defense and an offense that played as though the ice around the Blues’ net was quarantined.

“I wish I had the answers,” King Coach Larry Robinson said after passing through the locker room without a word to players who didn’t need to hear anything.

“We knew we were awful,” defenseman Rob Blake said.

Worse than awful.

“Embarrassed,” Robinson said. “If they don’t want to do it, you can’t make them do it.”

Too little practice. Too much practice. Good game plan. Poor execution. Work. Rest. What’s left?

“I feel sorry for Larry because I think, for whatever reason, he isn’t getting through to the players,” King President Tim Leiweke said in a recent interview in which he added that Robinson’s future is in the hands of Dave Taylor, the team’s general manager.

But more in the hands of the players.

“He’s a good coach and we’re the ones screwing him,” Blake said.

That began early, when Demitra--who also had two assists--scored in the first period for a 1-0 St. Louis lead.

The game was effectively over.

“We didn’t make plays after that,” said Blake, although the Kings really didn’t make any before that either.

“We didn’t make anything happen. This is such a fragile team that, once we give up the first goal, we start running around and don’t do anything.”

The Kings are 4-24-1 when the opposition scores first.

“This was our biggest game of the year,” said Blake, in an oft-repeated assessment because every game is big when you are five points out of the playoffs and only 24 remain.

“And we pretty well played like we played all year.”

Not really. This was worse.

Take the second period, when Conroy, Turgeon and Demitra scored to make it 4-0. Goalie Stephane Fiset was under siege for 20 minutes in which the Kings were outshot, 17-4, and played lackadaisacal defense.

“You ask [Al] MacInnis and Turgeon if they’re getting ice in there,” Blake said. “There was no hitting. Everybody was so tentative.”

The Blues weren’t. Before Monday, they were 1-3-1 in a seven-game homestand, with all of the opponents having below-.500 records.

Tempers flared Saturday night when MacInnis lashed out against his teammates after a loss to Nashville; and in a hard practice Sunday, when Conroy and Chris McAlpine dropped gloves during a drill.

But Monday was a St. Louis love-in.

The Kings took Sunday off to travel from Calgary.

“We give them time away from the ice because they say they are tired,” Robinson said. “We skate them in practice to discipline them. We’ve tried all different things. . . .”

It was left for Fiset, who faced 40 shots to McLennan’s 23, to punctuate the night at 17:36 of the third period when a puck popped in front of him and he hit it Mark McGwire-style into the stands in frustration.

It was the hardest hit by a King all night.