Kings See Stars, Same as Usual

Well, a new century didn’t help.

The longest chain of futility in the NHL grew another length Monday night when early first-period goals by Brenden Morrow and Mike Keane were enough for Dallas in a 4-1 win at Reunion Arena, where the usual 17,001 saw the usual result whenever the Kings come to town.

Folks at Staples Center might as well get used to it.

The King record against Dallas since 1995 is 0-14-6-1. It’s the longest ongoing drought any team in the NHL has against any other, light years beyond the New York Rangers’ 0-11-5 against New Jersey, the second worst.

It’s one game from the Stars’franchise record for domination, which is 21 against, yes, the Kings of another generation. That was 0-17-4 from 1970-73, back when they were still princes and the Stars were in Minnesota.

“When are ya’ll going to get a football team?” said one Dallas fan, who presumably also likes the Cowboys’ chances against anything Southern California can throw on the field.

Well, the Lakers have won 19 in a row over your Mavericks and, uh, there’s Hollywood and, er, ah . . .

“You have to make things go your way,” said King Coach Andy Murray, who refuses to acknowledge any kind of streak because he was employed elsewhere for the first 18 games of it.

There’s no magic to the domination, said King defenseman Rob Blake. Dallas is simply a measuring stick.

“They’re the Stanley Cup champions,” Blake said. “They always have a good power play, good penalty killing. They play the way we’d like to play.”

As a winner.

But the Kings come up short in any department you can name:

* Stanley Cups: Dallas 1, Kings 0.

* Power plays Monday night: Stars one for seven, Kings zero for five.

And it was over early.

Morrow redirected a shot by Jamie Pushor from the point past King goalie Stephane Fiset at 5:41, giving the Stars a 1-0 lead.

OK, the Stars are good at protecting leads, but their Kevin Dean was soon assessed an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, putting the Kings on the power play. L.A. was four for eight with a man advantage against Edmonton only four days ago.

But the Stars aren’t the Oilers.

“We had a chance to tie them,” Blake said of the power play. “We didn’t take advantage of it.”

Worse, it became 2-0 only 1:06 later when Keane took a pass from Sergei Zubov, who had pounced on a loose puck in the Kings’ end. It was the seventh short-handed goal surrendered by the Kings this season, and they gave up an eighth when Zubov sent one into an empty net with 42 seconds to play.

Nobody in the NHL has given up more.

“You can’t afford to get down, 2-0, to them,” Blake said. “We didn’t come out the way we did against Edmonton [a team the Kings beat, 8-2, Thursday]. That’s the way we’ve got to come out every game.”

Instead, the Kings came out slowly Monday night.

“We didn’t play well in the first 10 minutes of the hockey game and they got a couple of relatively easy goals,” Murray said.

“You play two goals down to Dallas and it’s tough.”

In the Kings’ case, it’s impossible. They held the Stars to two second-period shots and got 11 of their own. At the end of the period, it was still 2-0.

“This was a hard game to evaluate,” Dallas Coach Ken Hitchcock said. “We got an early lead, and I thought we tried to sit on it.”

The Kings outshot the Stars, 27-14, no consolation at all.

Vladimir Tsyplakov’s goal 1:58 into the third period cut the lead to 2-1, but the Kings took care of that when Marko Tuomainen picked up a double-minor for high-sticking 19 seconds later. The Kings killed off the first two minutes, but Mike Modano scored in the second two minutes to make it 3-1.

The theme as the teams left the ice Monday night? Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.”

The Stars certainly should.