For One Night, Kings See Their Problems Disappear

Jozef Stumpel was in the right place at the right time Thursday night, and so were the Kings.

Who better to play to end the malaise of a two-game losing streak, a power-play and penalty-killing funk and the problems of inconsistent goaltending than the Thrashers, who are in only their second season and sometimes play like it?

Where better to play them than Philips Arena, where they are 0-3-2?

Stumpel’s goal at 13:21 of the second period cut off an Atlanta rally at the pass, regained momentum for the Kings and sent them winging to a 5-2 victory before an announced--and highly inflated--13,255.

It was a tonic for the Kings, who have never lost in three games against the Thrashers, but who had lost two in a row and five of their last eight against other folks before Thursday night.

“We went out and did what we had to do,” said defenseman Mathieu Schneider, who started a three-goal King outburst in the second period with his third goal of the season.

“We obviously needed the two points, but we shouldn’t get too excited. This is a team that we should beat. We have to pick it up another level for [New] Jersey [on Saturday].”

Their 3-1 lead had been cut to 3-2 in the second period when Tomi Kallio took a pass from Patrik Stefan and fired from within arm’s length of King goalie Jamie Storr.

The way things had been going lately for the Kings, there was a concentrated “clank,” the sound a team makes just before the wheels fall off.

Enter rookie defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky, who took the puck after Stumpel won a faceoff with Per Svartvadet, skated goalward and fired from long range. Stumpel, who had skated past, merely reached out his stick and re-directed the puck past Atlanta goalie Milan Hnilicka for a 4-2 lead.

It was a killer for Atlanta Coach Curt Fraser, and it left him fuming.

“It’s 3-2 and we have a center who loses a faceoff and then loses his man on defense,” he said of Svartvadet. “We have one guy [Ray Ferraro] who can win a faceoff. Do I have to have one guy take all the faceoffs from now on? I guess so.”

Ferraro, a former King, already has enough to do, playing on the Thrashers’ No. 1 power play.

It seemed to be on the ice all night, and the Kings’ victory was accomplished, in large part, by shutting off Atlanta’s eight power-play efforts, several times without allowing a shot.

And it was accomplished by rallying around Storr after a Thursday morning meeting in which the Kings were asked to do so.

“I think when you play better team defense, it always makes your night easier for your goaltender,” King Coach Andy Murray said.

Storr turned back 22 of 24 shots.

After a Tuesday night debacle in Columbus, when they put 46 shots on net, watched 21 more blocked by the Blue Jackets and sent 13 others wide of the mark, getting a single goal on 80 blows, the Kings were more economical.

They needed only two shots to take a 1-0 lead, fashioned when Bob Corkum took a lead pass from Nelson Emerson and sailed in with Kelly Buchberger on a two-on-one, with the Thrashers’ Yannick Tremblay back.

Corkum’s goal “was a big one for us,” Murray said. “He was one of the best players on the ice all night.”

Tremblay countered later in the period to tie it at 1-1.

That set up the Kings’ three-goal splurge in the second, begun when Schneider back-handed a goal past Hnilicka.

Steve Reinprecht’s power-play goal made it 3-1, countered by Kallio’s goal, which was trumped by Stumpel’s.

Rob Blake added a power-play goal in the final period for the Kings.

“This club has another couple of levels,” Schneider said. “We can be with the best clubs in the league. We just have to be more consistent.”

And more consistently timely, as the Kings were Thursday.