Kings Waste No Time Hitting New Low

Bang, a goal by Theoren Fleury and the game was only 34 seconds old.

Bang, a goal by Adam Deadmarsh, and the Kings were two down with the rest of a long Sunday afternoon to play.

Rocky Mountain low.

Actually, Rocky Mountain lowest of this low King season. Newcomer Fleury embellished his Colorado bona fides with three goals and an assist, Joe Sakic had an assist and two goals and Milan Hejduk had four assists--all of that from one line for the Avalanche, who buried the Kings, 7-2, and left them shaking their heads on the way to their next stop: Boston.

After the Kings had surrendered a season-high seven goals, there didn’t seem much point in talking about the Western Conference playoff race. The Kings are still eight points behind with 10 games to play after Calgary’s loss Sunday night to the Mighty Ducks.

Ask Fleury.

“It’s a tough time of the year to be playing teams like L.A. and Washington [which the Avalanche beat, 3-1, Friday], teams that are out of the playoffs so you really have nothing to lose,” he said.

Maybe self-respect.

“That’s not the same [King] team we’ve seen the last seven or eight games,” said Coach Larry Robinson, shaking his head. “We’re such a fragile team right now because we can’t put the puck in the net that when you let in two quick goals like that, it kills you.”

It killed off any chance goalie Jamie Storr had of finishing the game. He was abruptly dismissed in favor of usual starter Stephane Fiset after giving up two goals in five shots.

Not that it mattered.

“We didn’t respond to that,” Robinson said. “We didn’t respond a little later to [Sean O’Donnell] taking up for the team [in a fight that left Colorado’s Jeff Odgers with a concussion].

“After about the 10-minute mark of the first period, we stopped hitting. Nobody touched anybody. You could see the smiles on their faces over there, ‘Boy, this team isn’t going to touch us.’ And away they went. Wind ‘em up, let ‘em go.”

Fleury let go with a second goal at 3:01 of the second period on a give-and-go from Sakic after a King offensive breakdown that left them two-on-one against defenseman Mattias Norstrom.

“I thought I was playing basketball on that one,” Fleury said. “Usually Joe takes that shot, but after he passed it, I had the finger-roll layup.”

To an open net, with Fiset looking at Sakic.

Where a 5-foot-6 winger from a Canadian farm learned about finger-roll layups is best left to the imagination. What is more exciting to imagine is what Fleury can mean to the Avalanche playoff hopes.

“They’ve got Fleury and they’ve got [Dale] Hunter [traded from Washington on Tuesday], and you can see their confidence,” King defenseman Rob Blake said. “They know they’ve got three lines to throw at you. . . . With this team, [Fleury] gets his opportunities. He doesn’t miss many opportunities. . . . When he gets it, he puts it in the net.”

Five shots, three goals, the last in the third period to punctuate the rout and finish the hat trick. Claude Lemieux scored in the second period 23 seconds after Fleury’s second goal, and Fiset’s second-period start had matched Storr’s in the first: five shots, two goals, albeit in much more difficult circumstances.

“It was obvious that we were a little scared of who we were playing,” Blake said. “You look at that lineup, and that’s a pretty good lineup. You tend to hesitate against a lineup like that, and they just keep coming at you. They’re not going to slow down one bit.”

They didn’t.

A goal by Sakic.

By Chris Drury.

Fleury’s hat-trick finisher.

All that matched only by King goals from Russ Courtnall and Ian Laperriere.

“That’s a good team against a real bad team,” Blake said.

And among the 16,061 present was the bad team’s majority owner, Philip Anschutz, a Denver resident whose party was spoiled.

“That’s why it’s so disappointing,” Robinson said. “Here we are, at the start of a road trip. You’ve got your owner watching, and you’d think the guys would want to play hard, play well in front of him. And such was not the case.”