Kings at a Loss After Missed Penalty Shot

It could have been a feel-good story fit for the holiday season, a perfect capstone to a feel-good trip for the surging Kings.

Montreal native Ian Laperriere, his adrenaline pumping as he skated from the Kings’ bench, had been awarded a penalty shot in the second period of a tie game against the Montreal Canadiens in the Molson Centre.

“What a thrill for him,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “The only place it could have been better would have been in the old Forum, I’m sure.”

Lappy, as he is known, also would have preferred a happier result.

In front of a crowd of 20,152 that included some 30 friends and relatives, including his ailing father Michel, the rough-and-tumble forward skated straight toward goaltender Jose Theodore and rifled a shot at him.

The routine stop was one of 28 saves made by Theodore, who emerged with a 2-1 victory Saturday night after Yanic Perreault scored a power-play goal on a redirection with 3:15 to play, ending the Kings’ winning streak at five games.

“I was nervous,” admitted Laperriere, a bruising player who has scored 90 goals in 514 NHL games, two in 36 this season, and had never before been awarded a penalty shot on any level, juniors included. “It happened so quick. Bryan Smolinski and Adam Deadmarsh told me on the bench just to go with my first idea.”

His idea: Keep it simple and aim for the spot between Theodore’s pads.

“I won’t try to deke,” he said, “especially [because] I’m from here. I won’t try to embarrass myself and drop the puck into the corner, you know what I’m saying? My first idea was to go five hole and that’s what I did. I missed.

“Hey, maybe it made a big difference in the game, but like I said, I’m not a goal scorer. You can look at my stats and you’ll see.”

It was the sixth consecutive unsuccessful penalty shot for the Kings, who last converted one on March 21, 1995, when Dan Quinn scored against Mikhail Shtalenkov of the Mighty Ducks in a 3-3 tie at the Arrowhead Pond.

The loss, meanwhile, ended a seven-game unbeaten streak for the Kings, whose 6-0-1 spurt had brought them to .500 for the first time and within two points of eighth place in the Western Conference. They had killed 49 of their previous 50 penalties, giving up only one power-play goal in almost 12 games.

So the percentages were against them when defenseman Aaron Miller, selected to the U.S. Olympic team earlier in the day, was penalized for cross-checking Richard Zednik of the Canadiens with 4:59 to play.

It was the last of only five penalties in a game that was in sharp contrast to the Kings’ fight-marred, penalty-filled 4-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators two nights earlier, but it was a costly one for the Kings.

“I went to hit him in the lower back,” Miller said of Zednik, “but he kind of bent over and I went right up his back and hit him in the back of his head. It wasn’t my intention to cross-check him, but that’s kind of what happened.

“I need to stay out of the box there, but you’ve got to play tough in front of the net. I was just trying to do my job and I got my stick up.”

With Miller off the ice, Perreault positioned himself behind defenseman Philippe Boucher just outside the goal crease and moved his stick in front of a shot from the point by Stephane Robidas that appeared to be sailing wide before it nicked Boucher’s stick and then glanced off Perreault’s.

“It was a bit of a lucky bounce,” Perreault admitted.

Outshot by the Kings, 29-16, the Canadiens also scored their first goal on a redirection, Arron Asham deflecting a pass from Patrick Poulin to open the scoring with 3:58 to play in the first period.

Nelson Emerson pulled the Kings even with 12:17 to play in the second, scoring his second goal of the season off a pass from Jason Allison, whose assist extended his career-high point-scoring streak to eight games.

The loss, their 11th in 15 one-goal games, left the Kings with a 14-15-5-2 record going into a three-day Christmas break. Last year at this time, they were 15-12-7-1 but had lost four in a row.

“One of the things that makes this defeat so bitter,” Murray said, “is that we enjoyed so much the feeling after the wins in the past [five] games. We’re really disappointed losing here tonight.”

Nobody more so than Laperriere.

“He’s a pretty good goalie,” Laperriere said of Theodore, also a Montreal native and a sometimes foil in summer workouts. “He just made a good save.”