INSTANT THREAT : Kings Got Audette to Improve Offense and He’s Needed Now More Than Ever

Nothing is going to change for King left wing Donald Audette.

He is still going to push up the right side, then cut across the ice, picking up speed as he goes. He will continue to lurk near the net, waiting for opportunities. He intends to go on with his goal-scoring ways.

What is different now is how much the Kings need him and the other members of their second line, Bryan Smolinski and Glen Murray.

“As a scorer, Donald is a natural,” defenseman Rob Blake said. “It’s obviously what he does best. When we got him [last season], he gave the offense a boost. We need him to give us a boost now.”

Audette, acquired in a trade with Buffalo last December, says there is no added pressure. Besides what more can they do? After all, the Audette-Smolinski-Murray line has 16 goals in the last 10 games.

Yet, in a matter of 24 hours, their importance has increased dramatically.

On Friday, it was announced that Luc Robitaille would be out two to six weeks with a broken left foot. A day later, it was learned that Jozef Stumpel would undergo surgery to repair a sports hernia and was expected to miss eight to 10 weeks.

It left the team’s top line as Ziggy Palffy and a tag-team of fill-ins. The Kings may be off to a fast start, but maintaining that pace will require their second line to shine.

Or will it?

“Right now, everyone needs to produce,” Audette said. “But there is no special pressure on our line to do more. We just need to do what we’ve been doing lately.”

That has been considerable.

Through the first five games, that trio had zilch and demoted to the fourth-line status for a time. But when Audette fed Smolinski for the Kings’ first goal against Calgary on Oct. 15, the points began to pile up.

Audette has 12 points (seven goals, five assists). Smolinski has 13 points and Murray 10.

Pretty good production from a second line. Or are they the first line now?

“I just want them to keep playing the way they have been the last 10 games,” Coach Andy Murray said. “All I told them is they may play a little more now, but I didn’t want them to change a thing.”

Maybe so, but the three managed only one shot Saturday against Philadelphia, the Kings’ first game without Robitaille and Stumpel.

Part of that could be attributed to the 10-minute misconduct penalty Audette drew for firing a puck at a referee, who he claims not to have seen. Audette called that play “stupid.”

Still, this is the energy Audette can bring to a team. He scored 17 seconds into his first shift with the Kings last season and they went 7-1-1 in the first nine games after the Dec. 18 trade. Audette even scored a goal and mixed it up with goalie Dominik Hasek on his return to Buffalo.

Of course, later in the season, Audette also tested his teammates by saying character was “there when we want it to be.” Two nights later, he and goalie Jamie Storr squared off during pregame warmups because of an Audette shot that Storr thought was too high.

There is no doubt Audette has stirred things up since shuffling out of Buffalo. Fortunately for the Kings, he is usually causing stress for opponents.

“He takes chances out there,” Smolinski said. “We need him to raise the bar. We need that right now because we can’t be mediocre out there.”

Audette was brought in just to get the Kings back to mediocre last season.

He led the defense-first Sabres with 28 goals in 1996-97 and with 24 the next season. A contract dispute then started Audette on his way west.

The Sabres seemed on the verge of signing Audette but wouldn’t guarantee two years of the three-year, $5.7-million offer. The Kings, desperate for a proven scorer, entered the picture.

“I knew I could help them with the offensive side of it,” said Audette, who signed a two-year, $3.6-million deal. “If I didn’t want to come here, I wouldn’t have approved the deal.”

He scored 18 goals in 49 games. He also had to watch the Sabres reach the Stanley Cup finals. Well, watch isn’t exactly what he did.

“Sometimes I would check the score to see who was winning,” Audette said.

“I’d be lying if I said I wanted them to win. Part of me wanted them to win--for the trainer, the players who had been there a long time, the city, the fans. Part of me didn’t want them to win. I spent 10 years there and the closest we got was the semifinals.”

Audette, though, didn’t have time to ponder. He had other things to think about.

Murray was hired as the Kings’ coach. Palffy and Smolinski were acquired from the New York Islanders. Audette was moved to the second line and switched to left wing.

He had been a right wing throughout his nine seasons in the NHL.

“I knew all the tricks to get open from the right,” Audette said. “It’s all about habits. I was used to going from right to left and building up speed in the neutral zone. I had less ice to work with.”

He and Murray switched after five games. Audette scored the next time out against Calgary.

“It made a difference,” Audette said.

In case it wasn’t obvious, he had a five-game streak during which he had six goals and three assists.

“It’s the line,” Audette said. “We just know what each other brings to the ice.

“Glen is tough in the corners and has a good shot. Smoli completes us. He reads the play well and always finds us in the right spot. You can’t have three guys who are the same type of player on a line. You have to mix it up.”

And Audette’s contribution?

“I don’t know,” he said.

Others do.

“I think goalies sometimes forget about him,” Smolinski said. “He goes about things quietly on the ice, but he gets his goals every year.”