Last Stand Saves Kings

The stage was set for the Kings to make a strong statement Saturday night against the Detroit Red Wings, and for two periods they failed just as they did in the first round of the playoffs last season.

And then they woke up. Behind third-period goals from Kelly Buchberger and Mathieu Schneider, the Kings extended their unbeaten streak to six games with a hard-earned 2-2 tie before 18,360 at Staples Center, the largest crowd to attend an NHL game in Los Angeles.

The Kings, who are 4-0-2 since Nov. 2, moved to within a point of Phoenix, which lost to Columbus on Saturday, in the race for first place in the Pacific Division with 22 points.

Detroit, which swept the Kings in four games in last season’s postseason, received second-period goals from Martin Lapointe and Sergei Fedorov.

“We just had to keep plugging away,” said Jamie Storr, who finished with 29 saves. “We were playing good but we thought we had more in the tank. We came out in the third [period] and just took it to them. . . . We were able to tie it up against another great team.”

The Kings, who were coming off an impressive shutout victory over Vancouver on Thursday, started off as if they wanted to avenge last season’s playoff loss to the Red Wings in one period.

Unfortunately for the Kings, they attacked early and often but were unable to score, thanks to some nifty stick work by former King goaltender Manny Legace.

The main problem for the Kings in the first period was that their best chances came when they were short-handed and not when they had a man-advantage. Winger Nelson Emerson had two prime opportunities to score on a Red Wing power play but was stopped.

The one shot the Kings did get past Legace in the opening period was from captain Rob Blake, who hit the left post from just inside the blue line.

With the game still scoreless, the Kings started the second period with a man-advantage but again their power play failed to score. After entering the game with the third best home power play in the league, the Kings appeared to be too cautious with the puck when they had a man-advantage early against the Red Wings.

Instead of shooting, the Kings looked to pass first and their hesitation gave Detroit’s defense enough time to recover.

“We should have had a couple of more goals on our power play,” Schneider said. “We were just concentrating on getting the puck to the net. We had guys in front and we just wanted to simplify things because they have an excellent penalty-kill team.”

Detroit made the Kings pay for their inability to capitalize on their scoring chances when, at 4:31 of the second period, Lapointe continued his hot scoring streak with his team-high 11th goal of the season. Lapointe made up for a missed scoring chance early in his shift by gathering in a rebound from a shot by Brendan Shanahan to score from the top of the crease.

Later in the period, the Red Wings scored their second goal of the game, thanks to Fedorov. The Red Wings had a four-on-three advantage after Fedorov drew King defenseman Aki Berg into a tripping penalty at 8:42. Detroit needed only 13 seconds to take a 2-0 lead when Fedorov took in a perfect pass from defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom and scored from the right circle.

Trailing by two goals, the Kings started the third period like they began the game. Only this time, they were able to beat Legace.

Buchberger knocked home the Kings’ first goal at 4:02 following sharp passes from Mattias Norstrom and Lubomir Visnovsky. It was a score that gave the Kings new life because later in the period they actually scored a power-play goal.

From the right side of the blue line, Schneider whacked a shot above Legace’s glove to tie the game at 9:49. It was Schneider’s fifth goal of the season.

The Kings played Detroit even the rest of the third period and although both teams had chances in overtime, they were glad to skate off with a tie.