Kings’ Fourth Line Too Much for Ducks

Bryan Smolinski didn’t take being moved to the fourth line as a demotion.

“I’ve got two real good players there,” Smolinski said, then went out Wednesday night and showed just how good they were.

His goal broke a tie with 45 seconds played in the second period and linemate Nelson Emerson’s goal later in the period added to the lead in the Kings’ 6-2 victory over the Mighty Ducks before an announced 18,118 at sold-out Staples Center.

On a night when the Kings played their best game of the season, the Ducks played their worst, putting only 18 shots on goal, half of those in the third period when the issue was no longer in doubt.

“The Ducks are much better than they played tonight,” King Coach Andy Murray said after L.A.’s fourth consecutive victory over their rivals.

The Ducks were much better only 48 hours earlier, when they rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period only to lose, 5-4, to the Kings in overtime.

“There’s a lot of differences,” Duck Coach Craig Hartsburg said of the two games. “The first period was pretty even. Then we were back on our heels. The whole game was different.

“I don’t think we have an excuse. We didn’t play very well. I don’t know if you can learn anything from a game like that.”

The Kings learned they have four lines, which was Murray’s quest when he shuffled the team upon Jozef Stumpel ending his holdout and the Kings’ being hammered, 7-1, a week ago in St. Louis.

The fourth line broke the game open.

Smolinski scored when he picked off an Oleg Tverdovsky pass at the Duck blue line, skated in and backhanded a pass to Emerson, who fired it back toward the net. There, Smolinski was lurking on goalie Dominic Roussel’s right.

Smolinski’s shot was made easier by Kelly Buchberger, who placed himself in Roussel’s face, shielding off yet another defender.

It was Smolinski’s second goal of the season, the first scored since he was moved from the second to the fourth line five days ago.

“Obviously there’s no explanation,” said Tverdovsky of the Duck meltdown from there. “We played like we didn’t care.

“We played all right in the first period, then I made a mistake on the Smolinski goal. And after the second goal, we just gave up for some reason.

“We didn’t take it to them. They just killed us.”

The killer was Emerson’s goal, scored only 2:48 later when he took a backhanded pass from Buchberger and blasted away from the right point to make it 3-1.

“That was a big second period,” said Luc Robitaille, who was honored before the game for earning his 600th NHL assist and 1,000th point as a King. He then added three more points, all on assists.

“We came out and scored two big goals. Those guys were the difference in the game. They certainly did a job.”

From there, a feeding frenzy ensued.

It became 4-1 at 8:43 when Steve Reinprecht scored his third goal in the last four games, rebounding a shot by Rob Blake that glanced off Glen Murray, who drew an inadvertent assist.

The three-goal flurry spelled the end of the evening for Roussel, who moved out and Guy Hebert moved in to stop the bleeding.

It took the edge off the Kings’ first period, a chippy 20 minutes in which they limited the Ducks to three shots, but one of them--actually, the first--found the net behind Jamie Storr.

The Kings had taken a 1-0 lead--they have in nine of their 11 games--when Stumpel scored on a five-on-three power play after Robitaille tipped the puck to him. Ziggy Palffy started things with a shot that Robitaille deflected through the legs of Duck defenseman Jason Marshall and onto Stumpel’s stick.

Paul Kariya negated that lead at 11:44 when he took a pass from Niclas Havelid and headed into open ice, leaving the Kings’ Mattias Norstrom in his tracks. Storr came out to challenge and could only wave at Kariya’s blast from the left wing.

The Kings refused to let up after their 4-1 lead in the second period. They added goals by Blake and Murray, countered only by Steve Rucchin’s power-play score to finish things.

For Andy Murray, it was a reversal of fortune. Only a week ago at St. Louis, the Kings lost, 7-1.

“Some nights, you look at your team and you think, ‘I can’t even put one line together and two good defensemen,’ ” Murray said. “Tonight, I’ve got Aki Berg sitting out and Jason Blake and Craig Johnson, and I think I’ve got 23 good players.

“When you have a night like we had in St. Louis, you don’t think you’ve got any.”

Somehow, Hartsburg would probably understand.