L.A. Is Having Rally Good Time

It was the anti-Ottawa.

The undoing of an embarrassment.

Kings’ heads were higher Wednesday night at Air Canada Centre.

It’s not as though they will throw back the victory they had earned a night earlier, but when Mathieu Schneider and Jozef Stumpel scored and goalie Jamie Storr made it stand up in a 2-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs, there was less euphoria than in Ottawa, more satisfaction.

“Even though we won up there [7-6 at Ottawa], we know that we can only do that maybe once a season,” Mattias Norstrom said. “This is the way we have to play to win.”

It’s the way Storr has to tend goal.

His satisfaction came in not only holding down Toronto but in doing so in front of family and friends from nearby Brampton.

“It’s only the second or third time my dad [Jim] has been able to see me play an NHL game out of about 150 [actually 134] or so,” he said. “My mother [Keiko] passed away five or six years ago, and he has had to battle, to work at home.”

He had remarried and has younger children still at home.

“My mom can watch every game. My dad can only see me play in Toronto,” Storr said.

Jim Storr got an eyeful of his son, who stopped 34 shots, some of them from within an arm’s length of the King net.

A shot by Jonas Hoglund was set up by a pass from behind the net by Mats Sundin and was rejected by Storr from three feet.

Only 4:05 had been played.

Close-in shots by Yanic Perreault, Nik Antropov and Gary Valk were dealt with before Gary Roberts scored Toronto’s goal.

“He played a solid game,” Sundin said of Storr. “I thought a lot of our shots were from from the outside, but he was there. We didn’t play that badly.”

Added Sergei Berezin: “Games like this happen, but their goalie played unbelievable.”

While Storr faced 35 shots, his counterpart, Curtis Joseph, had to deal with only 18.

“Most of those shots were from the outside,” King Coach Andy Murray said of Toronto’s blasts. “Jamie did a good job, and we did a good job defensively of denying second-shot opportunities.”

Norstrom and Rob Blake were particularly successful in keeping Toronto attackers outside scoring range and pounding them along the boards.

“When you give up six goals, I don’t think anybody is satisfied,” Blake said of Tuesday night’s game. “We wanted to play them tighter.”

That the Kings did, and second-period goals by Schneider and Stumpel made it pay off in the team’s fourth victory in five games.

Storr has all of those decisions. The one Tuesday night was in relief of Steve Passmore. The Kings had planned to save Storr for Wednesday, but when they fell behind, 5-1, at Ottawa, Storr got the call.

On Wednesday, there was more pressure on the goalie, but the Kings weren’t nearly as far behind.

Schneider’s goal, scored only 1:57 into the second period, tied the score, 1-1. It came when he trailed a play and Ziggy Palffy found him with a pass.

Stumpel’s goal came at 10:26 when he flashed between Brian McCabe and Tomas Kaberle in front of Joseph and redirected a shot by Jaroslav Modry into the net on a power play.

“I was waiting for him to get there in front of the net,” said Modry, who had the puck outside, directly in front of the goal. “I was looking for a screen from him.”

Instead, he got an assist on the Stumpel goal.

Luc Robitaille assisted on both scores.

From there, it was a matter of playing defense and holding on. Toronto outshot the Kings, 13-5, in the third period and had the puck in the Kings’ end when Coach Pat Quinn called a timeout with 26.9 seconds to play.

The Kings’ Stu Grimson skated to Storr, whose head was down.

“He’s always talking to me on the ice,” Storr said. “It’s not that he’s saying anything much, but he’s talking and I’m not. It’s good to hear him.”

Toronto’s Perreault won the faceoff, but the puck went loose in the Kings’ end.

“When Nelson Emerson went down on the puck with 26 seconds to go . . . if he lets that go, it goes up the boards and they get a good shot,” Blake said. “That’s the kind of commitment we need.”

And the kind of defense and goaltending the Kings need.

*

DUCKS: 5

ATLANTA: 2

Anaheim gets an unexpected scoring punch to earn only its second victory in 13 games since left wing Paul Kariya broke his right foot on Dec. 17. D8

NHL ROUNDUP

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