Kings’ Tie No Case of Blues

Their lineup had more patches than a war surplus rubber dinghy, and before the game, they had to go into the stands to pick up a winger.

With all of that, the point the Kings earned Tuesday night was golden, tarnished only slightly when Mike Eastwood scored at 15:06 of the third period to give St. Louis a 2-2 tie at Kiel Center.

“Every point for us is golden,” said Coach Andy Murray in his mildest speech of a day that included a diatribe at noon.

That was when he challenged his players after a lackluster effort a night earlier at Dallas and an eight-game stretch in which they earned only three points and won only once.

“It was probably as assertive as I’ve been all year,” Murray said. “I was looking at where we are at and where we have come from.

“I was talking about the first 30 games of the season, how other teams’ pro scouts were talking about our team. How we were a hard-working team, how we were tough to play against.”

As opposed to the last three-plus weeks, when opponents were ready to send limos to pick up the Kings, who were patsies to play against.

But not Tuesday. Not when what was left of the Kings got goals from Bob Corkum and Luc Robitaille to match those of St. Louis’ Eastwood and Scott Pellerin.

What was left of the Kings didn’t include center Jozef Stumpel, who suffered a knee injury at Dallas; and it didn’t include Ziggy Palffy, who skated before the game but was scratched because of back spasms.

Lines were shuffled, and the Kings found themselves a winger short, so Steve McKenna was told to put on his skates and then had a role in Corkum’s first goal as a King.

Donald Audette found himself on the ice after a couple of scratches, and on a line centered by Brad Chartrand, who had started the day as a Long Beach Ice Dog.

“When a team plays hard like that, you look out there and think, ‘I’ve got four pretty good lines, six pretty good defensemen and a pretty good goalie’ ” Murray said. “When you play like we’ve played in so many other games, you look out there and say, ‘I don’t know if I’ve got one good line. I don’t know if I can put two good defensemen on the ice. I’ve got to find a goalie who can stop the puck.’ It’s just all based on how you play, your perception of the team.”

The perception of most was that it was no surprise when Pellerin scored 4:13 into the game to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

That the lead stayed that way through the period raised an eyebrow or two, and Corkum’s game-tying goal in the second period got everybody’s attention.

“[McKenna] kept the puck alive and [Jaroslav Modry] got it to me, and Dan [Bylsma] pretty much wiped out the goalie,” said Corkum, who has been a King all of a week.

Bylsma’s role prompted a St. Louis protest, for he had tangled with goalie Jamie McLennan, rendering him defenseless when Corkum launched the puck.

Robitaille’s goal, at 51 seconds of the third period, came in his 1,000th NHL game and was largely an accident.

He had taken a long pass from Rob Blake and had Glen Murray on the right wing, with the Blues’ Jeff Finley in the middle.

“I was trying to pass it to Glen and it hit the defender in the knee,” Robitaille explained.

Said McLennan: “It was like he had a magnet in his stick.”

The puck dropped on Robitaille’s stick, and he had an open net because McLennan had anticipated a shot by Murray.

The Kings are unaccustomed to protecting a lead--this was only their second in nine games--and put forth only four third-period shots, instead playing keep-away when they could, dumping the puck when they couldn’t.

Eastwood’s goal prompted overtime, and also a protest from King goalie Stephane Fiset, who faced the shot without a helmet and mask because they were knocked off by the Blues’ Tyson Nash.

Overtime isn’t exactly Kings’ time. They haven’t won in overtime, haven’t even scored a four-on-four goal in regulation or overtime. The extra five minutes were plainly a holding action, and the Kings held onto the point and headed home.