Where’s Power Behind the Throne?

Here’s one scenario tonight for Game 4 of the NHL playoff series between the Kings and Detroit Red Wings at Staples Center:

* The Kings’ Jozef Stumpel begins a power play by beating Detroit’s Kris Draper on a faceoff and taps the puck to Garry Galley, who sends it skittering deep into the Red Wing end of the ice, where it goes around the boards hard enough to elude Detroit goalie Chris Osgood.

* The Kings’ Ziggy Palffy retrieves the puck midway between the goal line and blue line, and dishes it to either Rob Blake or Stumpel, who also tries to pass to Blake unless an open shot is available.

* Blake fires from just inside the blue line, a shot launched behind a screen created by Luc Robitaille.

* The red light goes on over Osgood’s head, signaling a goal.

Here’s the other possible scenario: There is no power-play goal, and the Red Wings complete a four-game sweep of their opening-round series with the Kings.

No other option presents itself.

“When you go 0 for 17 [actually 0 for 16] on the power play in the playoffs, you aren’t going to beat them,” Blake said Tuesday. “You can beat another team when their power play isn’t working, but not one that’s as good as [the Red Wings] are.”

Or one that gets as many power-play opportunities as Detroit has. The Red Wings are five for 13 for the two games since they were 0 for six in the series opener, and they got both goals in their 2-1 win Monday night when there were more Detroit skaters than Kings on the ice.

The first was scored with a five-on-three advantage, courtesy of Blake’s high-sticking hit on Tomas Holmstrom.

Twenty-two seconds later, Sergei Fedorov had scored a ridiculously easy goal for a 1-0 lead.

Blake is still brooding about that one.

“Every shift is important in the playoffs,” said Blake, the Kings’ captain. “When you take a bad penalty that hurts your team so much, that’s not being a good leader.

“I think that was a bad penalty, and if you want to be a leader, if you want to lead your team on the next step, you can’t put a team on a five-on-three advantage.”

Blake has been shut out on a series-high 15 shots so far, though two of those shots became assists when the rebounds became King goals.

It’s no secret that the Red Wings are Blake-conscious.

“So is everybody else,” said Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman. “When a defenseman has more shots than all but one forward, you have to be.”

Blake’s 327 shots generated 18 goals this season, 12 on the power play. But only five of the goals--four on the power play--were scored after Dec. 30.

It’s one of the reasons the King power play--ticking along at better than 20% before New Year’s--bumped along at 14.5% after. That included a five-for-59 (8.5%) March.

“They’re playing him real tight,” Robitaille said of the Red Wings. “But a lot of teams since Christmas have tried to play Rob real tight. If they’re playing Rob that tight, then somebody else should be open. If we can find those guys, then they’ll have to open him up a little bit.”

To get time to find those open guys, a couple of other things have to happen.

One is, the Kings have to win faceoffs.

“There are so many things that we did in the regular season that we aren’t doing right now,” Coach Andy Murray said. “We were a real good faceoff team during the regular season. Most nights we were on the positive side and we were the first night against Detroit, but the last two nights . . . “

Actually, the Kings won more faceoffs than they lost on Monday night, but Saturday’s 37% effort was miserable, and faceoffs to open power plays have been abysmal.

Another thing the Kings have to do is get the puck into the Detroit end of the ice.

“That’s been a problem,” Murray said. “It’s the same as . . . in volleyball. You can’t spike the ball unless you have a good set. In basketball, you don’t score from the other end of the court.

“You’re not going to get anything if you can’t get the puck up the ice. We’ve got to have more time of possession in the scoring zone on the power play.”

The problem has been getting it there in a position and with time to score.

“The thing is to make a good pass,” said Palffy. “Detroit has a good PK [penalty-killing unit] . . . but we’re making it harder than it is. We have to make it simple, make one or two passes and get the puck out.”

Instead, the Kings have frequently looked rattled by Detroit’s pressure, and they have occasionally spent half a shift gaining center ice. Once there, dumps of the puck into the Red Wing end haven’t been hard enough to elude Osgood’s efforts behind the net. He intercepts the puck, sends it out to a teammate, who sends it to the other end and the process starts all over, but with less time and with tired Kings trying to use it.

The process sounds easy, but for three games it has been anything but.

“We need to execute,” Blake said. “We need a shot from the point, with some traffic to the net.”

It’s simple enough. Last Saturday at Detroit, Nicklas Lidstrom launched a scoring shot from behind a screen created by Holmstrom. On Monday, the Red Wings scored on the same play, but that time Holmstrom tipped the puck past Stephane Fiset.

It’s what the Kings are looking for, and if they don’t find it, starting Thursday they can watch videos the rest of the spring and summer to see where it went.

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11 and Counting?

With Monday’s loss, the Kings have dropped 11 consecutive playoff games:

*--*

DATE RESULT June 3, 1993 Montreal 3, Kings 2 (OT)* June 5, 1993 Montreal 4, Kings 3 (OT)* June 7, 1993 Montreal 3, Kings 2 (OT)* June 9, 1993 Montreal 4, Kings 1* April 23, 1998 St. Louis 8, Kings 3 April 25, 1998 St. Louis 2, Kings 1 April 27, 1998 St. Louis 4, Kings 3 April 29, 1998 St. Louis 2, Kings 1 April 13, 2000 Detroit 2, Kings 0 April 15, 2000 Detroit 8, Kings 5 April 17, 2000 Detroit 2, Kings 1

*--*

* Stanley Cup finals

*

WORST PLAYOFF DROUGHTS

Most consecutive losses in NHL playoffs:

16--Chicago: 1975-80

12--Toronto: 1979-83

11--Kings: 1993-2000

STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS

Kings vs. Detroit

Detroit lead best-of-seven series, 3-0

Tonight, 7

Staples Center

Fox Sports Net

Helene Elliott, Page 10