Kings Don't Av It

By HELENE ELLIOTT

May 10, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

DENVER —

Their hearts and eyes were full, tears dampening the joy they knew they should have felt even in defeat.

The Kings weren’t supposed to get this far, not after battling for a playoff spot until the last weekend of the season and trading Rob Blake, one of the NHL’s top defensemen and an impact player at both ends of the ice, to the Colorado Avalanche Feb. 21.

But having successfully negotiated a road they had never traversed before, the Kings were desolate when their remarkable playoff journey ended Wednesday with a 5-1 loss to the Avalanche in the seventh game of their second-round playoff series.

“What people thought doesn’t really matter. We knew we had a shot,” center Bryan Smolinski said after the Avalanche broke free of the Kings’ defensive shackles for a four-goal spree in the third period, delighting a pompom-waving crowd of 18,007 at the Pepsi Center.

“We turned some heads by beating Detroit and we kept going forward. We had a chance.”

Their chances evaporated against a relentless tide thrown at them by the Avalanche, which will face the St. Louis Blues for the Western Conference championship starting Saturday at Denver.

After Blake scored a power-play goal in the first period and his former teammate and college roommate Nelson Emerson matched that with 1:29 to play in the second period, goals by Chris Drury, Ville Nieminen, Shjon Podein and Milan Hejduk--the last into a net vacated by Felix Potvin in favor of an extra skater--proved too much for the Kings.

“It’s disappointing. We battled all year and thought we had a chance,” said defenseman Philippe Boucher, who resurrected his career with fine two-way play throughout the playoffs.

“It’s no time to be satisfied. Maybe in a week we’ll think back and be proud. We had a chance to win. We played a hell of a team.”

Said Ian Laperriere: “It was great. We didn’t want to stop there. We wanted to go on and play St. Louis. . . . You lose in the seventh game, it could go both ways.”

At the end, during the traditional handshake line in which combatants once again become friends, Blake hugged many of his former teammates. Adam Deadmarsh and Aaron Miller, acquired by the Kings for Blake and Steven Reinprecht, also embraced players they had once fought with and had been obligated to fight against.

“It was a difficult time and a difficult thing to go through,” Blake said. “Fortunately it came out on the right side. Felix did his job. He did it since the day they got him.

“You make so many friends when you go through battles. It was an emotional handshake. It’s something I wish would never have happened. Actually, I’m really happy for what they accomplished. After the trade, they made a run at the playoffs and beat the No. 2 seed and took the No. 1 seed to seven games in the second round.

“Through difficult times is how people grow, and there isn’t any more difficult time than what’s happened the last couple of weeks.”

The Kings, whose only foray past the second round came when they made their surprise march to the Stanley Cup finals in 1993, gave the Avalanche a difficult time. Potvin shut the Avalanche out in Games 5 and 6 to prolong the series--his streak ended at 182 minutes, 57 seconds and 73 shots when Blake beat him on a long slap shot at 18:29 of the first period Wednesday--and Emerson’s goal had tied the game just before the second intermission. Smolinski had even bounced a shot off the post an instant before the horn sounded, and another King comeback wasn’t out of the question.

“We were pretty excited,” Emerson said, leaning back in his stall in the subdued visitors’ locker room. “We competed, but they were really flying tonight.”

Drury, who played on the 1989 Trumbull, Conn., team that won the Little League World Series as well as on an NCAA championship team at Boston University, recorded his 17th career playoff goal at 3:03 of the third period to give Colorado a lead it never relinquished. The speedy forward took a pass from Peter Forsberg and whipped a shot into the upper-right corner of the net as Potvin was screened by teammate Mattias Norstrom.

King defenseman Mathieu Schneider was sent off for tripping Reinprecht at 5:46, and Colorado capitalized at 6:22 on a wicked shot Nieminen snapped from the left side.

King Coach Andy Murray called a timeout after that goal and tried to rally his troops. And the Kings did challenge Patrick Roy several times in the last 12 minutes, but he protected the lead well.

“After two [periods] our chance was good, but they took it to us right from the start,” Potvin said. “They got a two-goal lead, and it’s hard to come back.”

The Avalanche had lost its previous three Game 7s, but that streak ended emphatically. Podein padded the lead to 4-1 after Eric Messier skated out from behind the net and threw the puck into the slot, where Podein lifted it over a helpless Potvin. The final indignity was an empty-net goal at 16:25 by Hejduk, after Murray had pulled Potvin in favor of an extra skater.

“I certainly want to pay tribute to them now,” Murray said. “I didn’t want to pay them tribute during the series. They were a step quicker, a little bit more physical--all the things we had done so well, they did a bit better than us tonight.”

Next, the healing will begin for the Kings. Then, they must decide who will return next season and who won’t; Luc Robitaille, Schneider and Potvin are eligible for free agency, but will they fit into the $40-million budget President Tim Leiweke has set?

“I enjoyed it here and I had a lot of fun,” Potvin said. “This [competitiveness] is what we’ve got to bring next year.”

Robitaille said he hasn’t thought about his contract status. “I’d love to come back,” he said. “I hope they want me back.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

THE SERIES

Avalanche wins, 4-3

GAME 1--Kings 4, Colorado 3 (OT)

GAME 2--Colorado 2, Kings 0

GAME 3--Colorado 4, Kings 3

GAME 4--Colorado 3, Kings 0

GAME 5--Kings 1, Colorado 0

GAME 6--Kings 1, Colorado 0 (2OT)

GAME 7--Colorado 5, Kings 1