Kings Prefer to Spread Talent

It’s a military axiom: concentration of force. The idea is to win by attacking the opponent’s weakest point with everything you have.

But this is playoff hockey, and cliches rule.

“It’s putting your eggs in one basket,” said Dave Lewis, Detroit’s associate coach. “Do you want to put them in two baskets? Or do you want to make a bigger basket?”

The basket, in this case, is the line centered by the Kings’ Jozef Stumpel and including winger Ziggy Palffy. From the opening day of training camp, for every day all three players were able to skate, until now, it is a line that has included Luc Robitaille.

It has led the Kings offensively.

The three combined for 80 of the Kings’ 245 goals and 198 points.

“It’s one of the top lines in the league,” Detroit’s Martin LaPointe said. “You have to pay special attention to Robitaille and Palffy every time they’re on the ice. When they’re on the ice together, you have to pay double attention.”

On Thursday night, they combined for no points in the Kings’ 2-0 loss to Detroit in the opening game of their first-round playoff series.

That might be because they didn’t combine at all for about half the game, save for on the occasional power play. Returning after 3 1/2 weeks spent recovering from a shoulder sprain, Palffy rejoined Stumpel, but with Craig Johnson on the other wing.

Robitaille was left with Bryan Smolinski and Glen Murray.

Why? The Kings don’t want Detroit to concentrate its forces defensively on Robitaille and Palffy.

“You saw what they did last year with [the Mighty Ducks’ Teemu] Selanne and [Paul] Kariya,” King Coach Andy Murray reminded.

The Red Wings shut down the Ducks’ top pair in a four-game playoff sweep.

Besides, “it’s not the lineup,” Murray insisted. “It’s that the lineup has to play better.”

He has frequently said he regards line switches as making excuses for players, and he has posted a “No-Excuse Team” sign in the Kings’ dressing room at Joe Louis Arena.

That Robitaille’s only shot Thursday came in the third period, when he was operating on a line with Palffy; and that Palffy’s only shot came seconds later would seem to indicate rejoining the two on a permanent basis would be a good move, but when lines were working in Friday’s practice, Robitaille and Palffy were split again.

“They do seem to work well together,” Detroit winger Darren McCarty said. “They seem to be able to hide on the ice, and then one of them jumps up and has a shot.

“It puts a lot of pressure on the defense, but when you have a defense like we have . . . if they play together, if they are split up, the ‘D’ can handle them.”

And did, both together and apart Thursday. Actually, Detroit’s defense wasn’t tested much because its forechecking was so disruptive that the Kings struggled simply to make it into the Red Wing end in a position to do anything with the puck.

The Kings had 19 shots, 10 by defensemen, and Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood seldom had to sweat in turning in his seventh playoff shutout.

“What you want to do with a goaltender is give him an opportunity to make a mistake,” Andy Murray said. “We didn’t give [Osgood] too many opportunities to make mistakes.”

The cause, insisted Palffy, Robitaille and Stumpel, had nothing to do with their skating partners.

“We have six guys up front who can put pressure on the goalie,” Robitaille said. “We’ve all skated with each other and we’re used to each other. That’s not a factor.”

Said Palffy: “It’s no excuse. . . . We just have to go for it. We can’t sit back and wait for [King goalie Stephane] Fiset to stop pucks all of the time. We have to go after their defense. We have to be aggressive.”

Murray predicted a better game for Palffy today.

“Actually, I expect a better game from everybody,” he said. “It’s just that this is the first time Ziggy has played in a while.”

It was his first playoff game ever.

“He was nervous,” said Stumpel, who added that an accumulation of rust inhibited the operation of his line with Palffy. “You could tell. I was nervous too. It’s been a long time for me.”

Stumpel last played in a playoff game in 1998, when the Kings were swept by St. Louis in the first round. With that series, the four in a row they lost to Montreal in the 1993 Stanley Cup finals and Thursday night’s game, they have lost nine playoff games in a row.

Different times, different places, different people, the same result.

“Each game becomes magnified,” defenseman Rob Blake said. “You don’t want to go home down, 2-0, to a team like this.”

There is no way the Kings can escape going home down, 2-0, if they don’t score. And all season, their best chance at scoring has been with Robitaille, Palffy and Stumpel on the ice at the same time.

“That’s up to the coaches,” Palffy said, shrugging. “I think it’s more important that we just play our game.”

The game that brought them here isn’t necessarily the game that the Kings are using to try to stay: a concentration of force or, in playoff parlance, having their eggs in one basket.

“You’ll see them together some tomorrow,” Murray said.

The question is how often, and, when it happens, if Detroit has the answer.

STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS

Kings vs. Detroit

Red Wings lead best-of-seven series, 1-0

Game 2: Today at Detroit

11 a.m. Channel 7