Granato Keeps Norstrom in Stitches

The Kings’ bus was late from San Jose Arena to the airport, because doctors were trying to put Mattias Norstrom’s nose back together.

Stitches on the inside, stitches on the outside, all trying to close up cuts opened when the Sharks’ Tony Granato used his stick as a scalpel in the third period Saturday night.

Granato earned a major penalty and Norstrom earned time in the training room while the Kings were earning no goals on the power play.

“It took a long time to stop the blood, and they told me it was going to take awhile to get it stitched up,” Norstrom said Sunday. “It would have taken the rest of the game, and I didn’t want to miss that.”

So he packed his nose with cotton and skated back out to take his shift. Only after Jeff Friesen scored the game-winning goal in overtime did Norstrom take the time for 20 stitches worth of repairs.

There was time to reflect on another loss, this in overtime, 3-2, but a loss nevertheless.

There have been so many lately in a 2-10-1 struggle.

“We’re getting there,” Norstrom insisted. “We’re doing the right things. Well, maybe not all the right things because we’re not winning.

“Every night, we are told to work and we shouldn’t have to be told to work,” Norstrom said.

“We are working. And we think that eventually, the ketchup is going to come out of the bottle.”

For now, though, it’s like the old television commercial. Nothing’s flowing, except the blood from Norstrom’s nose in a Saturday night loss at San Jose.

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The loss Saturday night dropped the Kings to .500 for the first time this season. Since they were 15-7-6-1, they have gone 3-11-1-2.

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This is scheduled to be the Kings’ final week of practice at Iceoplex at North Hills, their longtime home.

They plan on moving the entire hockey operation from the Great Western Forum to their new practice facility in El Segundo next weekend after a series of postponements that stretch back to October.

The building has been used for public skating and amateur league games since November, but city inspectors have not considered it ready for professional athletes until now.

The Kings are to be joined by the Lakers in the new site, but the basketball facilities are not yet ready.