Kings Scratch Out Victory Over Panthers

It was hunting season, and no deer ever faced the fusillade Mike Vernon did Thursday night.

When a shot by Rob Blake wasn’t bouncing off him, one by Ziggy Palffy was. Or one by Bryan Smolinski. Or Luc Robitaille. Or Glen Murray.

A franchise record-tying 26 shots were fired at Vernon by the Kings in the second period, after which the Kings had two goals by Len Barrie and one by Jaroslav Modry on their way to a 4-2 victory over the Florida Panthers at Staples Center.

After two periods, the Kings had outshot Florida, 35-7.

It was only the second victory in 10 games for the Kings, but it followed at tie at St. Louis and signaled rain in a drought-stricken month or so.

With lines being mixed and matched all night, largely the product of injuries to Jozef Stumpel, Ian Laperriere and Craig Johnson, and, later, Donald Audette, but also a function of making sure somebody was in Florida’s Pavel Bure’s pocket as often as possible, Barrie found himself centering two lines and scored once with each.

“[Florida Coach] Terry Murray is an old coach of mine [at Cincinnati of the IHL], and it kind of fires you up to score against your old coach,” Barrie said. More to the point, “I kind of talked to [Florida] this summer, but it didn’t work out and it’s kind of good to show a team that they made a mistake.”

That became apparent in the first period, when Barrie tied the score, 1-1, with a goal that was the product of Marko Tuomainen’s board-battering check that knocked the puck loose.

Barrie found himself in open ice with time to work on Vernon. Barrie went left, then moved right, Vernon following. The puck went between Vernon’s legs to counter an earlier score by Florida’s Ray Sheppard.

By then, it was apparent that the Kings’ usual tactic of swarming teams that spent the previous evening on the ice at the Arrowhead Pond was working. Florida had only two first-period shots.

Barrie scored again at 2:58 of the second period when he batted a rebound past Vernon, who probably deserved a better fate.

He had stopped a breakaway by Palffy, but the puck lay loose between his pads and Robitaille kept it alive for Barrie, who had a nearly open net as a target.

“I remember earlier in the year, you kind of expect Ziggy to score on breakaways because he did all the time, and I didn’t follow up,” Barrie said. “I kind of enjoyed watching him.

“This time I said, ‘I’m going to follow him,’ and I went to the net.”

Modry had an even more inviting target on a power play goal.

Blake fired away from the blue line, and there was a feeding frenzy in front of the net. Vernon slid over to his left. There were more Kings around the goal than a golf course the day before training camp, and Vernon tangled with several of them while the puck popped free to Modry, who was loitering on the other side of the crease.

Vernon scrambled, leaving his stick behind and getting only a glimpse of the puck sailing by for a 3-1 lead.

“We weren’t there the first two periods,” Terry Murray said. “We made a lot of turnovers.”

They got “there” in the third on a goal by Robert Svehla at 11:14 that cut things to 3-2. The Kings had blown a lead at Florida in the season’s third game and also had blown one Tuesday night in a 2-2 tie at St. Louis.

Their mission was keepaway, made difficult by an officials’ timeout to deal with problems behind the Florida bench.

“There was stuff coming at us and pounding on the glass,” Murray said. “It was really loose glass. . . . People were leaning on it and it hit me in the back. It took security a while to get there.”