Laperriere’s First Hat Trick Caps a 5-0 Victory by Kings

About 3 a.m. today, Montreal time, Michel Laperriere got a phone call from son Ian extolling his exploits of a few hours earlier.

The kid can send along a few hats later.

“I know he’s still up,” said Ian Laperriere after the first three-goal game of his NHL career and the work of Steve Passmore earned the Kings a 5-0 victory over Boston before 14,352 Friday at Staples Center.

“I want to dedicate this hat trick to him.”

They talk daily and have since this summer, when Michel was found to have pancreatic cancer. Ian underwent knee surgery in April and priorities aren’t lost on him.

“I was out five months,” he said. “Five months is nothing compared to what he is going through.”

For the Kings, two days were everything.

They were taken to task Friday morning and took out their frustration on the Bruins. A 4-0 lead, fashioned by two goals from Laperriere and one each from Ziggy Palffy and Eric Belanger held up this time, only two days after a similar advantage was blown in the third period of a 4-4 tie with St. Louis.

“I’m standing here only 48 hours later and it’s a very different feeling,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “It’s a real credit to our players, because that time was devastating.”

So too was a horror flick, narrated by Murray, a video of Wednesday’s game. In all, 13 crimes against hockey were ticked off and the culpable were named before their teammates in the dressing room at the team’s training facility in El Segundo.

“It’s part of accepting responsibility,” Murray said.

Lesson taught.

Lesson learned.

In the third period Friday night, the Kings nursed their 4-0 lead like a mother protecting her young. True enough, the Bruins aren’t St. Louis, favored by many to contend for the Stanley Cup. But Boston had come to town with a 3-0-1 record, its best since 1992 and a far cry from the Bruins’ 0-5-4 start a year ago.

“It brought us back down to earth,” Boston Coach Pat Burns said. “We were undefeated. We thought it would be easy. They just had a game [in which] they gave up a four-nothing lead. They outplayed us.”

The Kings got goals from Palffy, Belanger and Laperriere in the first period against former King Byron Dafoe, whose return in the Boston goal after a three-game, injury-enforced hiatus lasted only 20 minutes and 11 shots.

He was replaced by rookie Andrew Raycroft.

Dafoe had no chance on Palffy’s goal 4:23 into the game, his fourth of the season. It came when Palffy took a pass from Jaroslav Modry, then swept the puck between Dafoe’s legs.

The puck’s velocity was doubtless hindered by the fact that Palffy shot it with Mikko Eloranta hanging on his back.

Belanger’s goal came on the Kings’ first power play and was scored when he had the puck, walked it toward the goal where teammate Glen Murray was clearing the way and shot, then got his own rebound for a 2-0 lead at 11:28.

Laperriere, playing on a line with Jason Blake and Steven Reinprecht for the first time, got assists from rookie Reinprecht on his first two goals. The second made it 4-0 in the second period, an all too familiar scene.

“We know what they were saying over in their dressing room,” Murray said. “They were saying, ‘Get one goal, and the Kings will fold.’ ”

Not this time.

Passmore, in his Kings’ debut after being named the starter when Jamie Storr missed a Friday morning meeting, faced only four shots in the second period and saw only six in the third. Two of those--by Brian Rolston and Paul Coffey--came on a 5-on-3 Boston power play that spanned 1:43 of the third.

Laperriere’s first two goals earned him a try at a third, accomplished on a pass from Luc Robitaille while Laperriere replaced Palffy for a shift. A sprinkling of caps followed, something to cheer Michel Laperriere back home.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” Ian Laperriere said. “They found me.”

And the Kings found themselves after being lost for 48 hours.