Surging Kings Turn on Juice in 4-3 Victory Over Florida

Somebody flipped a switch in the building or paid the Edison bill or maybe just called an electrician, because all of a sudden there’s an advantage when the Kings have a man advantage.

They picked up power-play goals from Donald Audette and Rob Blake in a four-goal first period before 14,551 who saw Saturday night hockey at the Great Western Forum for the last time, barring a construction calamity at the Staples Center.

The power surge earned the Kings a 4-3 win over the Florida Panthers and pulled them to within three points of the idle Calgary Flames for the final playoff berth in the Western Conference with 14 games to play.

The Flames have 15 games left.

The Kings have been powerless much of the season, limping along at slightly more than a 12% efficiency rate with more players on the ice, but they have power-play goals in four of their last five games, all victories. They were shut out in two man-advantage situations in a loss to the Mighty Ducks on Thursday.

And they scored four goals in a period for only the second time all season. The first came at Washington on Jan. 29.

It was a game that limped through a plethroa of fisticuff-induced stoppages, particularly after the Panthers had fallen behind, 4-0, on the power-play goals and even-strength scores by Mattias Norstrom and Russ Courtnall.

It was as though gloves on the ice instead of on the hands prompted a Florida wakeup call in the second period, in which the Kings were outshot, 15-3, and took enough defensive liberties to surrender goals by Viktor Kozlov and Mark Parrish and yield half of their advantage.

A third-period power-play goal by Florida’s Ray Whitney at 16:03 made it even closer. It came when the Panthers owned a five-on-three advantage, the latter part of which came when Blake was sent off for slashing.

It was left for King goalie Stephane Fiset to stop the bleeding in a game that ended with players from both teams taunting each other at center ice.

In the end, the beginning made the difference.

“I think [the King coaches] watched the game Florida played against San Jose,” Norstrom said. “[The Panthers] tried to start fast against San Jose and had a little bit of success, so we knew we had to be ready from the drop of the puck.”

So too did Fiset, who stopped breakaways by Radek Dvorak and Bill Lindsay before the Kings got anything resembling an offense going.

That came on a power play at 6:04 when Audette crashed the crease to stick a rebound of Luc Robitaille’s shot past Kirk McLean for a 1-0 lead.

Audette has goals in the last four games.

Flush with power-play success, the Kings made the score 2-0 on Blake’s shot from near the blue line through a screen of at least three players, including the Kings’ Yanic Perreault, who leaped to avoid having his leg taken off by Blake’s bullet.

Norstrom’s goal made the score 3-0, prompting an unaccustomed celebration. It was only his second of the season and first since Oct. 18.

“It feels really good that I can contribute once in a while offensively,” he said. “It hasn’t happened often. Last year one goal, the year before that one goal. So this year I got two. It feels good.”

It felt lousy to McLean, whose coach, Terry Murray, judged his goalie’s performance lacking and excused him from further abuse, bringing on Sean Burke at 10:33.

Only 2:48 later, Burke had to face Courtnall, whose score also came on a power play, but Florida had the man advantage at the time. The Panthers also had their pockets picked by Jozef Stumpel, who was helping kill the penalty. He poked the puck loose to Courtnall, who scored on the breakaway.

The Kings are 4-1 in their last five games, which has pulled them back into playoff contention.

“We have been playing a lot better lately and it showed tonight,” Norstrom said.

Florida has other problems.

The Panthers remain tied with the New York Rangers for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, three points out of a playoff spot.