Strategy Pays Off for Kings

So much for this investment/reward business, this theory of a team getting its just desserts, as espoused by Andy Murray, the Kings’ new coach.

Work, sure, the Kings worked, but they were outworked by the St. Louis Blues for most of Monday night, at least until the third period.

That’s when everything that had gone wrong went right for the Kings, when Ziggy Palffy pushed a puck across the blue line to a streaking Luc Robitaille, who beat defenseman Chris McAlpine, then goalie Roman Turek with a shot from 20 feet to give the Kings a 3-2 victory before an announced crowd of 13,571 at Kiel Center.

To that point, 14:25 into the final period, St. Louis had doubled the Kings’ shots, 36-18, and many of the efforts had come in goalie Stephane Fiset’s face. The Blues had outshot the Kings, 16-5, in the second period, 12-6 in the third.

From that point, the Kings tightened their defense and the Blues had only two more shots the rest of the night.

In the last 20.3 seconds, Jozef Stumpel won three faceoffs near the King goal to cement the victory.

“They were big,” Robitaille said of the faceoffs. “These are things that didn’t happen for us last year.”

The Kings hadn’t won in St. Louis since Jan. 11, 1997, and have won only three times here in the ‘90s.

“These are games that we used to find a way to lose,” said Robitaille, who like so many Kings has been frustrated in St. Louis. “Now we’re finding a way to win them.”

It was nothing to hang in a gallery.

“We’ve been talking about being tough to play against,” said Murray, “but tonight for the first half of the game, we weren’t tough to play against.

“We weren’t happy with the effort tonight. The only positive thing is we found a way to win. . . . We won an ugly hockey game.”

The Kings (2-0) will take the points and head south, to Florida for a game Wednesday and to Tampa for one on Thursday.

A power-play goal by Rob Blake on a five-on-three advantage in the first period gave the Kings a 1-0 lead. That was erased by goals by St. Louis’ Pavol Demitra and Michal Handzus, 3:04 apart in the second period.

“We felt at that time we were shooting ourselves in the foot by getting unnecessary penalties because we weren’t winning the physical battles,” said Murray, who called time after the second Blues’ goal.

“We were being dominated physically . . . and I just wanted to tell them that there was half a hockey game left, and these things happened to Kings of the past, but they’re not going to happen to us now.”

Six seconds later, Palffy had his first goal as a King and the bleeding was stopped.

Stumpel won a faceoff, tipped the puck to Robitaille, who kept it alive for Palffy. It was left for him to beat Chris Pronger, then Turek to tie the game, 2-2.

“That goal was a killer,” St. Louis Coach Joel Quenneville said.

No, but it wounded the Blues. Robitaille’s was the killer.

It made a winner of Stephane Fiset, who was under assault from the opening faceoff until the game’s final six minutes.

“Obviously we’re trying to change an attitude in Los Angeles as much as we’re trying to change anything,” Murray said.

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