A Scrappy Lappy Makes Kings’ Coaches Happy

Coaches often get strong feelings in their guts this time of year, but it’s usually the ache of an ulcer. For King assistant coach Mark Hardy, the gut feeling he had Saturday afternoon told him feisty center Ian Laperriere should be on the ice against the Mighty Ducks when the Kings were pressing for a victory that could launch them to the playoffs on an emotional high.

Unlikely though it was, Hardy relayed his idea to Coach Andy Murray. To his credit, Murray didn’t laugh.

Instead, Murray trusted Hardy’s instincts enough to send Laperriere--an agitator and one of the NHL’s penalty-minute leaders--onto the ice for an offensive zone faceoff with Bryan Smolinski and Luc Robitaille. That Laperriere could be useful on faceoffs as a backup to Smolinski didn’t enter Hardy or Murray’s minds.

“I just saw Lappy was making plays out there and seemed relaxed,” Hardy said. “As coaches you see a little bit, and I saw he had some extra energy. I mentioned it to Andy and said, ‘Maybe we ought to try sending him out there.’

“It’s nice to see a guy like Ian Laperriere, who gives his heart and soul to the Kings, come up big.”

Laperriere lifted the rebound of a shot by Luc Robitaille over Duck goalie Guy Hebert eight minutes into the third period for the biggest goal for a franchise that hasn’t had many big moments since its improbable march to the Stanley Cup finals in 1993. A tie Saturday would have been enough for the Kings to secure a playoff berth, but their 2-1 victory was far more satisfying psychologically because it came at the expense of the Ducks and because they learned perseverance can count for so much when so few things are going right.

“It just felt so good,” said Laperriere, marveling at the circumstances that put him out in that situation and put the puck on his stick. “We’re in the playoffs. That’s all that matters.”

Laperriere’s goal was his eighth. He has never scored more than 13 in a season, and that was in 1994-95 when he was a 20-year-old kid struggling to make a name for himself with the St. Louis Blues. The name he has since made, as uttered by the opponents he hacks, whacks and tirelessly pursues, is usually unprintable.

Which is why Laperriere was as surprised as anyone to hear Murray call his name at so crucial a moment. The Kings didn’t want him to fight--they wanted him to fight through adversity.

“I just felt he had some jump,” Murray said. “And we needed a little more forecheck pressure than Jason [Blake] was giving us.”

But Murray didn’t go into details with Laperriere. “He just put me out there,” Laperriere said, still shaking his head. “I was ready to try to do my best.”

It was fitting Laperriere scored a rare goal on a day dotted with rare and strange occurrences.

The Kings on Saturday weren’t the gang that couldn’t shoot straight: They were the gang that couldn’t shoot at all. They had no shots on goal in the first period, drawing boos from a sellout crowd of 18,118 that was in the mood to celebrate, not to see the hated Ducks improve their playoff chances. Hebert, who had built a 7-0-2 unbeaten streak against the Kings, saw rubber in the first period only when he left his net to play dump-ins, no doubt needing to remind himself what the puck looked like.

“That’s the first time I’ve been involved in that. It’s embarrassing,” Laperriere said. “No shots in 20 minutes? It was embarrassing the way we were playing. We played good but they played great. All four of their lines were winning the one-on-one battles. We just said, ‘Guys, we’ve got to do something.’ ”

Not until Murray delivered an animated, arm-waving speech during a timeout at 3:27 of the second period did the Kings wake up. “We were just sitting back,” Murray said. “Obviously, Paul [Kariya] and Teemu [Selanne] are unbelievable players, but we had to start playing the game.”

Once they started, they refused to be stopped. Kelly Buchberger’s goal at 4:29 of the second period, his second key goal in two games, matched the first-period goal Selanne had scored and reinvigorated the crowd.

“Did we tire them out in the first period?” King co-owner Ed Roski suggested in the Kings’ jubilant locker room. “That’s what it was. We could have tired them out.”

More important, the Kings appeared to be tired of settling for mediocrity. They began to control the tempo in the second period, which was capped by Laperriere’s goal and highlighted by several acrobatic saves by Stephane Fiset.

“The guys in front of me played so good,” said Fiset, who stopped 25 shots. “I don’t remember the last time I beat the Ducks. . . .

“It’s a big win. Now we know we’re going to be in [the playoffs] but first we have to finish the rest of the season. We want to finish in fifth place. These [four] games left are going to be real important.”

The Kings appear to be locked into fifth place in the West, with the fourth-seeded Detroit Red Wings their likely opponent. However, the Red Wings still can overtake the St. Louis Blues for the Central Division lead and a more favorable seeding. “Pick your poison,” Murray said.

For the poison they ingested Saturday, at least, Laperriere was the antidote.