New Digs Inspire New Deal for L.A.

It turns out that the Staples Center is more than an addition to the downtown landscape. It’s looming over the local pro sports scene, causing teams to break their characteristic behavior.

First, Laker owner Jerry Buss parted with big money to sign a big-name coach in Phil Jackson.

Then King General Manager Dave Taylor parted with a talented young player like Olli Jokinen to land Zigmund Palffy--Ziggy, the Zigmaster, Palff Daddy--in a trade with the New York Islanders.

Your turn, Clippers.

The opportunity to combine the opening of a new building with a promising future for a team can’t be passed up. It’s a wave you can ride for a few years, all the way to the shore.

Except unlike surfing, there isn’t another set of waves coming up if you miss this one. At best there’s a chance at this every quarter century or so.

It’s good to see the Kings didn’t blow their shot at an empty net. They pounced on the financial misfortunes of the New York Islanders to land a proven scorer.

It won’t be considered a landmark day for the Kings, it doesn’t guarantee them a Stanley Cup or even sellout crowds. But it does represent a good start, a step in the right direction.

King fans, it’s safe to be seen in public again.

Go ahead and put on those Kings sweaters, be they white-and-purple, black-and-white, or (for the really old school) gold and purple.

That’s the audience this move will affect the most, the small but loyal support group that had grown increasingly disgusted with the team. The Kings can pull back the fringes of the fan base and build from there.

Palffy won’t attract the interest of casual sports fans the way a Wayne Gretzky did in 1988 or even to extent a Jaromir Jagr might today.

It’s not often that a person can play well in New York and keep a low national profile. Palffy managed to do just that in his five-plus seasons in New York.

Born in Czechoslovakia, Palffy speaks functional English, but he isn’t a candidate for his own talk show any time soon. He isn’t looking to take the town by storm or get his own billboard on Sunset Boulevard.

“I’m going to play hockey over there,” Palffy said in a conference call with reporters Monday. “I’m going to do nothing over there other than play hockey.”

That’s all that we ask of him. Well, actually, there’s this one additional request: Score goals.

If he could just match the 45 goals he scored in 1997-98 (his last full season) it would be the most goals scored by a King since Luc Robitaille scored 63 in 1992-93.

Robitaille scored 39 goals last season, and if he and Palffy can both hit the 40 mark next time around that would make them about as potent as any combination in the league, coming close to the numbers put up by Teemu Selanne and Paul Kariya in Anaheim and John LeClair and Eric Lindros in Philadelphia last season.

Palffy is quick, smart and has a knack for scoring.

The one thing he hasn’t done is make the playoffs. Perhaps in some ways that will be helpful, because the other players won’t be lulled into complacency by thinking Palffy can carry them into the playoffs. They all will have to work hard to build up the Kings; now they have a little better construction material.

Taylor is off the hook for hiring the unproven Andy Murray to be the head coach. For now, as long as he upgraded the product on the ice it doesn’t matter whether it’s Andy Murray or Bill Murray behind the bench. If this team underachieves and doesn’t make progress, then we’ll revisit this issue.

It’s not like Taylor sacrificed the future in a desperate attempt to win now; Palffy just turned 27 last month.

Rob Blake is 29. Goaltenders Stephane Fiset and Jamie Storr are 29 and 23, respectively. Robitaille is 33, but keep in mind that Brett Hull, the man who scored the winning goal in the Stanley Cup finals, will be 35 in August. These players have plenty of games and shifts left in them.

Palffy doesn’t bring much baggage to the Kings, he just brings a mortgage. For him, the worst thing about this trade is he moved into a new house in New York only three months ago.

“If you can find somebody who can buy it for me, I’ll appreciate that,” Palffy said.

Can’t help you there, Ziggy. If you’re looking for a place out here there’s a roomy, glassy building going up on Figueroa that carries a $400-million price tag.

Don’t get caught up in the architecture. A house is only as good as its inhabitants, and the residents of the Staples Center are looking better every day.

J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com

NEW KINGS: Ziggy Palffy and Bryan Smolinski have reasons to be happy about trade. Page 8.