Kings Not Fully Equipped to Cope With Avalanche

After a week of standing toe to toe with hockey’s best team, the Kings finally looked up.

Bumping their heads on a belly button.

The fourth game of their Stanley Cup playoff series with the Colorado Avalanche Wednesday didn’t need a final score, only a shift key.

THIS IS THE AVALANCHE . . . these are the kings.

It was a night not for harsh criticism--should we really dump on our lovable, go-figure skaters after all this?--but basic comparison.

The Avalanche’s 3-0 victory, giving it a seemingly insurmountable 3-1 series lead, was like three hours’ worth of directions.

Kings? This is where you need to be. This is how far you must travel to get there.

It is a journey for which the Kings have long had the money, and should now have the inspiration.

“We’re not far,” said irritated Coach Andy Murray afterward. “But we’re not close enough.”

In the first period Wednesday, they were right there, again and again and again.

Three power plays. Ten shots, while holding the Avalanche to three shots. Strength and speed and standing ovations.

And yet, nothing.

On the first power play, Ziggy Palffy--a disappointment in this series with only one goal and one assist--was stopped on a clear shot.

On the second power play, Jozef Stumpel hit the post.

On the third power play, the entire team seemed paralyzed, passing and holding and doing everything but shooting.

They ended that power play with only one shot. They ended that period a few minutes later in virtual slow motion.

That period ended their chances.

“When we have the opportunities, we have to score,” Murray said. “Certain guys have the responsibility for that. Those guys have to get it done.”

Also struggling besides Palffy is Luc Robitaille, who had only one shot Wednesday and has only one goal and one assist in the series.

Then there is Stumpel, who has only three shots and no goals or assists in the last three games against the Avalanche.

“We have certain guys who are paid to score,” Murray said, shaking his head.

He was asked, don’t great hockey players become truly great in big games?

“We’re seeing a pretty good example of that,” he agreed.

He was talking, of course, about the Avalanche.

That exhibition occurred in the second period, when the Avalanche waited for the Kings to make a mistake, and then put that mistake in the net.

Less than four minutes into the period, after three defenders came out to chase a puck, Milan Hejduk simply flipped it down to Alex Tanguay, who banked it off King Jere Karalahti’s skate and into the net.

“The first two shifts in the second period we backed off, and that set a trend,” Murray said.

Late in the period, the Avalanche scored on a power-play goal that looked like a painting, with the puck going from Peter Forsberg to Tanguay to Jon Klemm to Hejduk and past Felix Potvin into the net.

Fittingly, the final Avalanche goal was simply a matter of Chris Drury stealing a puck from Karalahti and sticking it in the net.

“We’ve haven’t have good second periods all year,” Murray said. “I don’t know if that questions the mental strength of our team or what.”

At this point, it doesn’t seem mental. It seems to be bodies.

At this point, the Avalanche just seems to be deeper and stronger at the most important positions.

It seems to be a disparity that, this summer perhaps, the Kings could fix.

“We know what it’s like to be in a one-sided series, like Detroit last year, when it was just gross,” Bryan Smolinski said before Wednesday’s game. “This is not the same thing. All we’ve heard all week is that the Avalanche have it all. But it hasn’t been like that.”

The Kings brag that they do not miss Rob Blake. Yet defenders Mattias Norstrom and Karalahti were each a minus-two Wednesday. For this series, they are a combined minus-13.

The Kings appear to have found the answer at goalie. But after 33 consecutive starts, it appears Potvin is tiring. He has allowed seven goals in two games, and some are wondering whether he finally is returning to earth.

Both questions can be addressed this summer. They could also throw in a little sensitivity training for the folks running the video scoreboard.

Late Wednesday, that scoreboard showed a fan, known around here as “Dancing Boy,” wearing an official’s jersey and dark glasses while tapping a cane.

It’s one thing to shout that a referee is blind. It’s another to make fun of the blind on a video being seen by 18,000 people. Fans will be fans, but the camera should have been directed elsewhere.

For the Kings, there is only one direction to travel. With one more chance to finalize a comparison, at least one person hopes they are not ready to settle for being lower case just yet.

“I know everybody is going to write that we are all done, that we are toast, that’s what they write when one team gets a three-to-one lead,” Murray said. “If anyone on our team wants to believe that, they can go somewhere else.”

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.