Kings Make the Most of Their Chances

The Kings skated as if through quicksand for more than 30 minutes Monday. The more they struggled, the harder it became to gain ground on the Phoenix Coyotes.

A two-goal lead was down to one midway through the second period and the Coyotes were suddenly on a power play. A Staples Center crowd of 17,061 hushed, bracing for the worst.

It never happened. Ziggy Palffy stole a pass and rocketed away on a two-on-one break to score a short-handed goal. Fifteen seconds later, Bryan Smolinski swiped another pass, skated into the clear and scored a second short-handed goal.

The Kings took an electric 6-2 victory from Phoenix, vaulting over the Coyotes into eighth place and the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The teams each have 79 points, but the Kings are in the higher position because they have played fewer games.

The Kings also moved within four points of the sixth-place San Jose Sharks and the seventh-place Edmonton Oilers. The Kings and Oilers play Wednesday at Staples.

“We’ve jumped into the eighth spot,” said Smolinski, who had two goals and an assist. “We’re playing with a sense of urgency and there’s still 10 games to go. We can still do a lot of damage.”

Certainly, one victory and one day in eighth place won’t mean much if the Kings don’t continue to press the issue down the stretch. They are 9-2-2 since acquiring goaltender Felix Potvin from the Vancouver Canucks for future considerations Feb. 15.

“I’m sure they will regroup,” Luc Robitaille said of the Coyotes, who are 0-3-2 in their last five games and 2-5-3 in their last 10.

“They have a lot of character guys over there. . . . There was a good feeling tonight. But, man, we can’t enjoy it. We’ve got 10 games left and we’ve got to win as many as we can.”

Robitaille assisted on the Kings’ first two goals and scored his team-leading 35th goal late in the game to move past Dave Taylor into second place on the team’s all-time scoring list with 1,071 points.

Defenseman Jaroslav Modry and winger Kelly Buchberger also scored for the Kings. Potvin made 26 saves for his third consecutive victory.

Jeremy Roenick and Travis Green scored for Phoenix. Roenick’s goal cut the Coyotes’ deficit to 2-1 at 8:24 of the second period. He then drew a boarding penalty against an overzealous Buchberger, putting the Coyotes on a power play at 10:27.

The game turned in stunning fashion, but not the way the Staples crowd expected.

Palffy intercepted Roenick’s pass in the Kings’ zone and raced up ice with teammate Adam Deadmarsh on left wing and only Teppo Numminen back for the Coyotes. Palffy sent a laser between the legs of Sean Burke for a short-handed goal and a 3-1 King lead at 11:39.

Seconds after the ensuing faceoff, Smolinski tapped the puck away from Phoenix defenseman Jyrki Lumme at the blue line, skated in alone on Burke and whistled a shot over the goalie’s left shoulder for a 4-1 lead at 11:54.

The fastest short-handed goals in club history turned a dour crowd into a boisterous one in 15 seconds. Palffy’s goal also ended an eight-game drought, one game shy of the longest of his career. Smolinski’s goal gave him four in three games.

“They had just scored,” Robitaille said. “We got a penalty, then bang, bang, we get two short-handed goals. Are you kidding me? It just killed them. That was the game right there.”

Said Smolinski: “It sent a jolt through the team and the whole arena. They [the Coyotes] couldn’t react at all. We really hemmed them in the rest of the game.”

Asked if he felt the game slipping from the Kings’ grasp as the Coyotes began their ill-fated power play, Smolinski said, “I don’t think we were getting outplayed. I just think we were just being a little slow and they were a step ahead of us.”

Television cameras caught a glimpse of Wayne Gretzky, new part-owner of the Coyotes, shaking his head in disgust in the dying minutes of the second period. He asked Coach Bob Francis to cancel practice Sunday and invited everyone over to his place in Thousand Oaks.

But a day away from the rink didn’t seem to help his new team against one of his old ones.

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WEST RACE

If the playoffs began today, the Kings would be in and Phoenix out. A look at how they compare over their last 12 games:

Kings and Coyotes

WINS

9 and 2

LOSSES

1 and 7

TIES

2 and 3

AVG. GOALS

3.08 and 2.33

GOALS AGAINST

1.67 and 3.75