KINGS REPORT : Fiset Makes Best of Tough Situation

It was a hard summer, a different summer for Stephane Fiset.

There was rehabilitation for injuries of a season ago, the most serious of which was a nagging groin ailment sustained against Colorado in the season’s fourth game and from which he never really recovered.

Among other exercises, the rehab involved weightlifting, something he had never done. “I always thought it would slow me down,” Fiset, 29, said.

“I wish I had done it 10 years ago.”

And then there was the contract. Fiset went through arbitration to get the $2.1 million he will earn for playing in goal for the Kings this season.

“I never wanted to go,” Fiset said. “They go after me, I go after them. . . . I didn’t like it.”

His first three games in the exhibition season would indicate that the contract business and the injury are behind him. Fiset is 2-1 and has given up only three goals in that time. His first game, against Phoenix, was a shutout.

He continues to share time with Jamie Storr, who is more than four years younger and considered the goalie of the Kings’ future. But Fiset wants some of that future too.

Ahead lies another expansion draft, and the Kings can protect only one goalie without exposing more players than they want.

“I want to stay here,” said Fiset. “I’m just going to go out and do my job and hope that I can stay.”

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Defenseman Jaroslav Modry, who suffered a concussion in Wednesday night’s game at Oakland when San Jose’s Owen Nolan hit him from behind, is not seriously hurt and stayed with the Kings on their trip to Colorado.

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The Kings spent Thursday at Eagles Nest Ranch just outside Denver. Like the Kings, the facility is owned by Philip Anschutz.

“Team-building” included golf, hunting, fishing and horseback riding before tonight’s game against the Avalanche.