Kings Enjoy a Great Night

The Great One was there. Wayne Gretzky spent Thursday night surveying the downtown playground of his former employers, the Kings, from one of Staples Center’s cubbyholes for the nouveau riche.

The Pretty Darn Good One was there. Mario Lemieux was checking out his Pittsburgh hirelings.

The Next Great One was there. Penguin winger Jaromir Jagr put on a clinic with a goal and an assist.

And he was upstaged by, uh, Sean O’Donnell in the Kings’ 5-3 victory.

The King defenseman, by his own admission no offensive threat, threaded a shot between the legs of Michal Rozsival and past the glove of Peter Skudra for the tying goal, then saved a puck near the blue line and started a passing sequence that became Luc Robitaille’s goal that gave the Kings the lead for good.

“I knew . . . we kind of had an outnumbered situation there, and I just tried to get it on net,” said O’Donnell, who had only one goal last season and has only 11 in six NHL seasons.

The reason the Kings outnumbered Pittsburgh was because Aleksey Morozov had missed a shot at the other end of the rink and pulled up lame.

“That’s one of those deals in hockey where the whole complexion of the game changes,” Penguin Coach Kevin Constantine said. “[Morozov] gives us a two-goal lead, we’re in pretty good shape, and he gets hurt instead. And because he gets hurt, that gave them the chance to come down in an odd-man attack so that one play was clearly the turning point of the game.”

O’Donnell’s heroics rewarded the patience of the Kings, who were 3-30 last season when trailing going into the third period, and who have won their last two games by coming from behind.

“We don’t want to make a habit of this,” O’Donnell said. “But it is good to know that we can do it.”

Robitaille’s goal came when O’Donnell stretched for a puck at the blue line and sent it to Jozef Stumpel, who fired it across the ice at Ziggy Palffy, whose shot was tipped in by Robitaille.

A 30-footer by Glen Murray 11 seconds later let everyone in a Kings’ sweater, including most of the announced 14,779 on hand, breathe a little easier.

It proved to be the game-winner because German Titov scored with 13 seconds to play, rebounding Jagr’s missed shot.

Bryan Smolinski had an empty-net goal with three seconds left.

In the first two periods, most of the entertainment had been provided by Jagr. He started the night with a goal that only a WWF fan could appreciate. He took a puck from Rozsival and took on the Kings’ Aki Berg, who met Jagr at about the blue line.

Berg slashed Jagr, then hooked him, but Jagr steamed on, shaking off Berg’s efforts like they were a buzzing fly and launched the puck past goalie Stephane Fiset.

It was all Berg could do to keep from going in the net with the shot.

Only 42 seconds had been played.

“Obviously Jaromir Jagr is a pretty good hockey player and just overpowered Aki Berg and got the first goal for them,” said King Coach Andy Murray in something of an understatement. “Aki’s got to make a better play.”

Murray has frequently counseled Berg about his inconsistency.

“We’ve played 12 games now, and [Jagr] is a world-class player, so we need a world-class defensive effort to beat him.”

Jagr assisted on the second goal when he sent a pass across the King goalmouth to John Slaney.

Fiset was occupied with the King nemesis and Slaney had things rather easy in making it 2-0 with 3:09 played in the second period.

Half of that deficit was made up by Donald Audette, who took a long rebound of his own missed shot and returned it netward, this time over a sprawling Skudra at 11:25 of the second.

Smolinski started the play by winning a puck on the end boards and sending it out to Garry Galley, who rifled it over to Audette.

He had struggled in the season’s first five games while playing left wing and was switched to right, but Audette showed he had picked up a couple of notions during his time on the left.

The win was the Kings’ third in the five games of their first homestand at Staples Center. They finished 3-1-1.