Kings Do a Quality Job

After the Kings scored only one goal in three games last week, Coach Andy Murray seemed to state the obvious when he said late Saturday night that they needed to generate more shots on goal to be successful.

It turns out, however, that what they needed was quality, not quantity.

The Kings put only 18 shots on net Sunday night against the Chicago Blackhawks but they scored on four of their first 12 and added an empty-net goal with their last in a 5-2 victory in front of 12,310 at the United Center.

Mikko Eloranta, Adam Deadmarsh, Craig Johnson, Bryan Smolinski and rookie Andreas Lilja scored goals for the Kings, who won for only the second time in the 10 road games since their Oct. 24 trade for Jason Allison and handed the Blackhawks only their second loss in 16 home games.

The offensive outburst made a winner of backup goaltender Jamie Storr, who was again solid in spelling Felix Potvin, stopping 24 shots.

Deadmarsh’s first-period goal, which ended a six-game point-scoring drought for the winger, was especially timely because Herb Brooks, who will coach the U.S. team in the Salt Lake City Olympics in February, was among those in attendance.

“That’s nice,” said Deadmarsh, a candidate for the U.S. team, “but the most important thing was to win a hockey game. Our team has really been struggling. Everyone feels better about himself when you win.

“It’s been pretty gruesome around our locker room the last few days.”

The mood was much lighter after the Kings ended a three-game winless streak in which they gave up only five goals but lost twice and tied once.

Though they spotted the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead on Tony Amonte’s goal 5 minutes 1 second into the game, the Kings quickly recovered, pulling even on Eloranta’s goal at 14:20 and taking the lead on Deadmarsh’s at 17:34.

Eloranta’s second goal of the season started out as a pass to Allison on a give-and-go but caromed off the skate of defenseman Phil Housley.

“In order to get goals, sometimes you need bounces,” said Deadmarsh, who scored his on a rebound of a shot by Lilja. “We haven’t been getting a lot of those this year. I know you have to make your own bounces, but if we keep crashing the net like we have been, pucks are bound to squirt our way.”

The Kings scored two power-play goals in the second period, the first by Johnson. With Steve Sullivan in the penalty box for goaltender interference, Johnson took a pass from defenseman Jaroslav Modry and broke free into the attacking zone, lifting a shot over goaltender Jocelyn Thibault to give the Kings a 3-1 lead.

“That was the turning point of the hockey game, plain and simple,” Blackhawk Coach Brian Sutter, addressing Chicago reporters afterward, said of Sullivan’s penalty and the ensuing goal by Johnson. “What else are you going to say? We didn’t get good efforts from a lot of people.

“You guys have been blowing people’s horns. They have been reading their press clippings and everything else. That’s why I don’t get too high on them. We didn’t win a lot of battles.”

Later in the period, the Blackhawks lost another. With Boris Mironov in the penalty box this time, Lilja took a rebound off the boards behind the net and slapped the puck into the net for his first NHL goal, making the score 4-1.

“I just went for the net and tried to make something happen,” said the defenseman from Stockholm. “All of a sudden it bounced out and I took a whack at it.”

It was that kind of a game for the Kings, whose victory ended the Blackhawks’ three-game home winning streak. “Sometimes you’re not going to get a lot of opportunities to score, but you have to make the most of the ones you get,” Storr said. “Tonight, we did that.

“Our game plan was to play well defensively and let the offense take care of itself. Instead of looking at it like, ‘We’ve got to go out there and score goals,’ we just looked at it like, ‘We’re playing well right now but we’re not getting rewarded for it, but we will be if we keep playing hard.”’