Touted Avalanche Able to Stand Up to Scrutiny

Hope you enjoyed the ride. Please wait until the vehicle has come to a complete stop before you unbuckle your seat belt. Make sure you have all of your belongings before you exit.

The Kings’ magical journey through the playoffs is over. Your heartbeat can now return to its normal rate. There will be no more overtimes, no more one-goal victories, no more games at all this spring.

The Colorado Avalanche erected a road block Wednesday night, outclassing the Kings in so many ways for a 5-1 victory in the decisive Game 7 of their Western Conference semifinal series.

Upstart teams can overcome the lack of home ice, they can score early-round upsets. But when it’s time to engrave the Stanley Cup it usually goes to teams whose names have belonged on it all season.

In all reality, the Avalanche had to win this game, and it showed.

The Kings tried to downplay the notion that the Avalanche had more to lose than they did. Nice try, but clearly there was much more at stake for Colorado.

If Colorado went out early there was talk that the team should be altered or even dismantled, that maybe it isn’t worth it to keep high-priced talent such as Joe Sakic and an aging Patrick Roy around if it wasn’t going to bring a Stanley Cup.

A King loss Wednesday night sure wouldn’t prompt any break-up-the-Kings talk.

Maybe that’s why the Avalanche played with a greater sense of urgency from the beginning.

“They came out and they played at a whole other level,” the Kings’ Luc Robitaille said.

The Avalanche started off with a 7-1 shots-on-goal advantage and took twice as many shots as the Kings throughout much of the first two periods. The Avalanche finished with a 36-26 edge.

The Avalanche story was energy and effort, like Jon Klemm out-hustling two Kings to get to the puck before the Avalanche could be called for icing.

And it was about the superior talent rising to the top. Colorado scored its first goal when Milan Hejduk won a faceoff in the Kings’ zone, Sakic got the puck and whipped it back to Ray Bourque, who zipped it across the ice to a wide-open Rob Blake. Blake fired one of those power-play shots King fans know so well, and Felix Potvin didn’t have a chance.

Who would against that lineup? Just listen to the names involved on that play: Sakic to Bourque to Blake. It sounds like something out of an All-Star game.

The Kings’ story was about missed opportunities.

On the Kings’ second power play, Bryan Smolinski fed a pass to Philippe Boucher charging to the net, but Boucher’s shot hit the post.

Later, Adam Deadmarsh stole a pass and didn’t see Ziggy Palffy, who had nothing but frozen water between him and Patrick Roy.

The Kings’ goal came on a fluttering end-over-end shot by Nelson Emerson that floated over Roy’s shoulder with 1:29 left in the second period. Emerson seemed more surprised than excited, although he didn’t let up on his next shift, digging in the corner to get the puck, then whipping it to Smolinski for another shot that hit the post.

“That changed the whole course of the game,” Smolinski said.

Colorado poured it on in the third, scoring four goals (one into an empty net).

You hate to see Colorado’s scoring spree bloat Potvin’s goals against average, especially after it was his play in front of the net that got the Kings to this point. They needed him to be perfect in Games 5 and 6 just to get them to this juncture, and he was up to the challenge.

But the Kings as a whole couldn’t match the fury Colorado brought Wednesday.

“They just played very strong tonight,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “They had a complete team going tonight. There’s a reason they were the top team in the regular season.”

Murray was quick to praise Colorado now that the series was over. While it was on, he could only talk about how much he wanted to beat the Avalanche.

Murray should praise his own team as well. And although he’d rather cut off his arm, he ought to reach around and give himself a pat on the back.

The Kings don’t go home empty-handed. They re-energized their longtime fans and made some new ones. The pot from their six postseason home games will wipe out more than half of their projected $5-million operating deficit.

They bought themselves the benefit of the doubt now. We’ll know better than to count them out if they’re struggling in the regular season, or trailing in a playoff series.

The Kings believe as well.

“Now we know we can win in the playoffs,” Ian Laperriere said. “We know the feeling. That’s a great feeling. You just want to do it again.”

The team’s effort this season makes it mandatory for Dave Taylor to bring back the principals, especially Potvin and Robitaille, to continue what this group has started.

They got away with trading Blake, but there’s nothing left in their goodwill account.

Blake gets the last laugh. He scored three goals in this series, which is three more than the two Avalanche players who went to L.A. in the trade, Deadmarsh and Aaron Miller, scored.

Blake came through, more than he did, unfortunately, when he was with the Kings.

But he added hugs to the traditional handshakes when he passed by his former teammates in the postgame reviewing line, and all of the Kings wished him well now that he’s moving on in the playoffs.

It would be great to see Bourque win the Cup after all these years. Or Mario Lemieux, to show that he still has it--and give Michael Jordan something more to shoot for.

There are great stories all over the place. Only now, the Kings aren’t one of them.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com.