Evans Has More Advice for Kings

Daryl Evans, the Kings’ radio analyst and hero of the 1982 “Miracle on Manchester” playoff comeback, accurately predicted injured forward Brendan Shanahan would try to give the Red Wings an emotional boost by returning to the lineup in Game 5. Evans also said a good start by the Kings could turn the game and the series in their direction, and he was right again. The Kings stayed out of the penalty box for nearly all of the first period, took an early lead and held on for a 3-2 victory, a performance that was their best of the series.

Asked to predict the keys in tonight’s game, Evans didn’t need to consult a crystal ball.

“There will be a lot of similarities from the last game in [tonight’s] game,” he said. “The start of the game will be very important, and the Kings can’t get involved with the crowd, because the crowd is going to be on a big high. If the Kings stay composed and weather the storm at the beginning, they’ll be OK. It’s going to be a very tight game, a one- or two-goal game.”

He also said he won’t be surprised if Steve Yzerman returns to Detroit’s lineup for the first time since he injured his foot in Game 1.

“That might be something that benefits the Kings,” he said. “They’ve got a lot of guys playing hurt--Darren McCarty, Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman, Chris Chelios--all those guys aren’t healthy. And if Yzerman plays, they just bring in another guy who isn’t 100%.

“If he made the trip, I’d say there’s probably better than a 50-50 chance he’ll play.”

*

Lee Zeidman, the vice president of operations at Staples Center, bristles when players criticize the ice conditions in the arena, which he insists are fine. King defenseman Mathieu Schneider, however, thinks otherwise, and he expects sub-par ice to affect the style and tempo of tonight’s game.

“The ice has been very chippy here in L.A.,” Schneider said. “It’s not going to be a very pretty game.”

A club spokesman said Zeidman laughed at Schneider’s comments.

*

Desperate for a jolt of energy entering the third period Saturday, Bowman formed a line of Vyacheslav Kozlov, Igor Larionov and Sergei Fedorov. The three Russians responded when Kozlov scored the first of Detroit’s two goals in the final period.

“They gave us good chances in the third,” said Bowman, who went on to defend Fedorov’s play.

“He put one on net and another just missed it,” Bowman said of Fedorov, who had goals in the first two games of the series, but has been blanked in the three consecutive King victories.

“We’d like to get off to a better start, obviously,” Bowman said of the Red Wings’ strategy for Game 6 tonight at Staples Center.

“If we could play like we did in the third period, well, we had to play that way. We were gambling to get scoring chances and hoping they didn’t capitalize.”