Avalanche Dulling Kings’ Senses

Call it The Stupor at Staples. As an advertisement for the supposedly fast-paced NHL in the 2000s, it was disaster.

But the Colorado Avalanche isn’t interested in style points. The Avalanche only cares about winning, knocking the Kings from the Stanley Cup playoffs as quickly as possible and moving on to the Western Conference finals.

The Avalanche is supposed to get that far, and perhaps beyond. Colorado wants no part of an extended series with the Kings. The Avalanche saw how the Kings built momentum in their first-round victory over the Detroit Red Wings.

Coach Bob Hartley wants no part of a repeat, so he’s playing it so close to the vest that it’s made for dull hockey in the last two games.

That’s a pity because the Avalanche has perhaps the league’s most skillful team and Hartley has his players playing like a bunch of hacks. It’s also a shame the Kings haven’t been better able to exploit Colorado’s plodding style.

“I think they’re playing playoff hockey,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “It’s tight. It’s a man’s game--not to be sexist.”

The Kings can wail about getting no justice Saturday from the video goal judge in Game 2 in Denver. They might have led, 1-0, if replays had been able to determine whether Glen Murray’s first-period goal had crossed the goal line before Colorado defenseman Ray Bourque swatted the puck out of harm’s way.

The Kings also can bellow about Monday’s feeble effort by linesman Scott Driscoll, who failed to leap out of the way of a rolling puck that retreating defenseman Mattias Norstrom was poised to gather. Instead, the puck ended up on the stick of Milan Hejduk, whose break-in led to Peter Forsberg’s go-ahead goal midway through the second period in Game 3.

However, the Kings have only themselves to blame for a 2-1 series deficit after dropping a 4-3 decision Monday before a sellout crowd of 18,478 at Staples.

Andy Murray says he doesn’t want to play firewagon hockey (that’s a nice Canadian term for run-and-gun hockey, eh?) against the more talented Avalanche. But his players are getting mired too often in the station-to-station style of the Avalanche.

A frenetic pace aided the Kings in their victory over the Red Wings. You would be hard-pressed to find an odd-man rush down the ice for the Kings in either Games 2 or 3 against the Avalanche.

“It’s tough to get an odd-man rush when you’re playing five-on-four for 20% of the game,” King forward Ian Laperriere said. “The first 20 minutes, we were in the box for eight minutes.”

The Avalanche could not score on six power-play chances Monday, but each and every time a King trudged to the penalty box, the team’s momentum vanished.

“It burns the guys who are on the penalty-kill,” Laperriere said, referring to top-line forwards Ziggy Palffy and Jozef Stumpel. “We’ll be smarter about it Wednesday [in Game 4]. We’ve got to play like these guys play, like Colorado and Detroit play. We have to take a hit and not retaliate.”

In addition to spending too much time in the sin bin, the Kings are spending too much time trying to pry the puck away from the Avalanche along the boards. They also aren’t getting the puck past the line of Avalanche players clogging the neutral zone.

What’s more, Hartley’s line changes are agonizingly slow, further halting any momentum the Kings might have gained from the previous shift.

Hartley appears content to play hockey’s version of half-court basketball, and it’s working. There’s been very little flow to the last two games and, not surprisingly, the Avalanche has won both.

“It’s been tough for both teams to get shots while skating five on five,” Murray said. “It’s tough to find space. . . . Maybe they’re trying to drag us out of that style.”

It should be noted that the Kings did carry the play for lengthy stretches in the final period, but trailing by 2-1 and later 3-1 and 4-2, they had to be desperate. The Kings outshot the Avalanche, 14-3, in the third period.

“What you saw in the third period was us getting more pucks to the net and getting more bodies there,” Murray said. “We did a much better job of that in the third period.”

If the Kings can’t skate with the Avalanche and can’t muck and grind along the boards with Colorado, then perhaps the way to get a victory in Game 4 is to simply block goalie Patrick Roy’s view of the puck.

“We know what it takes,” Luc Robitaille said. “We win the next game and it’s 2-2. We believe in ourselves. If we do the things we did tonight, and if we cut down our penalties, we will beat these guys.”