Coach’s Message to the Kings Is a Powerful One

You send the message by withholding playing time. So when Glen Murray, Bryan Smolinski and Donald Audette sat in Coach Andy Murray’s doghouse and watched seven minutes of the second period of the Kings’ game at Dallas four days ago, the reason was as clear as the Southern California sky after a hard rain:

Dog it and ice time goes elsewhere, particularly if it’s on the power play.

Message received.

Glen Murray scored first- and third-period power-play goals Saturday in a 4-1 victory over San Jose at Staples Center that gave the Kings a 14-7-4 record, good for 33 points, most in the NHL.

It was the Kings’ first win before a sellout crowd of 18,118 in their new digs. They are 1-2-1 with a full house.

Murray also assisted on Audette’s goal that broke a 1-1 tie, and Ziggy Palffy added an empty-net score with a second to play.

The key was the play of the Murray-Smolinski-Audette line, along with the 33 saves made by goalie Jamie Storr.

“I was going to talk with them yesterday, but I thought about it and wanted them to smolder a while longer, so we talked about it today,” Andy Murray said of the line that has grown increasingly important in the absence of injured Luc Robitaille and Jozef Stumpel.

“They were very poor in Dallas. They were outstanding [Tuesday night] in Colorado, but we are striving for consistency as a team. It’s strange a coach would say that about a bunch of guys that have 25 goals, but we had to challenge them to be better.”

It wasn’t really necessary.

“He didn’t have to say anything,” said Smolinski, who assisted on Murray’s first goal, which broke a 0-for-29 power-play drought.

“It’s more he makes you feel guilty as hell. . . . We knew our line didn’t play great in Dallas.”

Nobody has played that well on the power play lately, but that changed Saturday afternoon when Aki Berg sent a pass to Smolinski, who sent the puck to Murray, who beat Steve Shields for a 1-0 lead with 4:37 played.

Tick-tack-toe.

It was the perfect power-play goal.

It was a coach’s dream.

It was completely unplanned.

“It was a little scary, because . . . we planned to shoot it and get to the rebound,” Andy Murray said, laughing. “On the bench, when they scored I said, ‘Just the way I designed it.’ It was a nice goal, and we’ll take it any way we can get it.”

The goal was countered by one from San Jose’s Jeff Friesen, also on a power play, in a second period in which the Kings were outshot, 19-5.

But they weren’t outscored, because among the five shots was one by Audette that made it 2-1 at 17:06.

On the play, Smolinski took the puck away from Jeff Norton, faked out Patrick Marleau and sent it to Murray, loitering at the left side of the crease.

Ordinarily, Murray is a banger. In this case, he finessed a pass across the crease to Audette, who beat Shields easily.

“That was kind of a weird play,” Murray said. “If I was a left-handed shot, I probably would have shot it, but it came to me in an awkward position. And then I saw Donald coming and he was screaming. I think he kicked it in.”

Murray and Audette both laughed.

“Screaming? He finally saw me,” said Audette, who has 10 goals.

To get out of a period in which you are outshot by 14 “was big,” said Storr, who handled the workload well after missing the game at Dallas and two periods of the one at Denver because of a strained right groin.

“You’re going to have periods like that sometimes,” he added, “but the second line stepped up and kept us ahead.”

Murray’s second goal came at 9:54 of the third period when he took a power-play pass from Audette, who took one from Smolinski.

Tick-tack-toe.

Again.

“We made a couple of mistakes penalty killing . . . and they scored on them both,” San Jose Coach Darryl Sutter said. “Both of them were the result of penalties we didn’t have to take. They were the difference in the game.”

And now they are the difference between the Kings and San Jose in the Pacific Division.

DUCKS: 4

NASHVILLE: 3

Paul Kariya and Steve Rucchin scored two goals apiece as the Ducks won at Nashville. Page 7

KING NOTES

Luc Robitaille will rejoin team with an eye toward playing Friday. Page 6

TRANSITION

GAME

Staples Center reached another milestone--the first day-night doubleheader for hockey and basketball.

Page 6