Point and Counterpoint

The Kings left little margin for error in their captivating playoff run last spring, when their seven victories were by one goal.

That could be the case again this season, especially without Luc Robitaille, as the Kings showed in their opener Thursday night, a 2-2 tie with the Phoenix Coyotes in front of a sellout crowd of 18,210 at Staples Center that included Todd Bailey, the 23-year-old son of Ace Bailey.

Bailey, 23, dropped the puck in an emotional pregame ceremony. His father, the Kings’ director of pro scouting, and Mark Bavis, an amateur scout for the Kings, were killed aboard a hijacked airliner in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Kings, wearing patches on their jerseys to honor the scouts, twice squandered one-goal leads.

They might have won, but a shot from the slot by defenseman Mathieu Schneider midway through the overtime caromed off the crossbar.

It was a disappointing start to a potentially promising season for the Kings, especially since they outshot the Coyotes, 33-17.

The Coyotes finished only two points behind the Kings in the Western Conference playoff race last season, but this is not the same team.

No other NHL team has undergone a more drastic transformation over the last nine months than the Coyotes, who reportedly lost about $28 million last season, the worst bottom line in league history, according to Commissioner Gary Bettman.

Managing partner Wayne Gretzky and General Manager Cliff Fletcher have remade the roster since taking control of the franchise in February, jettisoning 14 players and trimming about $15 million from the payroll.

Most notably, captain Keith Tkachuk was traded late last season and scoring leader Jeremy Roenick left as a free agent over the summer.

It’s a much younger team that surrounds standout goaltender Sean Burke, who almost carried the Coyotes into the playoffs last season.

“I think Phoenix is going to be an intense, hard-working, physical, highly energetic team that’s going to be fun to watch,” King Coach Andy Murray said this week. “They’re going to come in here and try to spoil our party.”

The Kings, meanwhile, were hoping to build on a late-season surge that took them to the brink of the Western Conference semifinals last spring and a successful exhibition season in which they were 5-1 and gave up only nine goals.

With the high-scoring Robitaille gone to Detroit, they need to remain stingy.

“We want to be better defensively than we were last season,” Murray said. “Down the stretch we were very good. I think part of that was [goalie] Felix Potvin, but I think the other part of it was, our team was good for Felix Potvin ....

“He just had to be good. He didn’t have to be spectacular, and I think you’d prefer to go into the season where your goalie only has to be good.”

For the young Coyotes, Burke may have to be spectacular.

He was good early on, stopping a backhanded shot by Ziggy Palffy and a point-blank shot by Steve Heinze in the game’s first 10 minutes.

But he had no chance on a shot by Glen Murray at 14:25 of the first period. With the Coyotes’ Mike Johnson in the penalty box for hooking Palffy, Murray stationed himself at the bottom of the right circle.

Heinze, signed in July to a three-year, $6-million contract to replace Robitaille, found Murray with a pass through the crease and Murray slammed the puck past Burke into the right side of the net to give the Kings a 1-0 lead.

The Coyotes tied the score at 2:20 of the second period when Claude Lemieux, at 36 the oldest player on the ice, gathered up a loose puck at center ice and skated in alone on Potvin, beating the goaltender with a backhanded shot.

A great effort by Heinze helped the Kings regain the lead at 8:47 of the second period, the winger spinning around the Coyotes’ highly regarded young defenseman, Ossi Vaananen, and diving at the puck to put a shot on net.

Bryan Smolinski slapped the puck into the net to make the score 2-1.

The Coyotes, held without a goal in their first seven power-play opportunities, finally broke through to pull even again late in the period.

Daniel Briere redirected an airborne shot by Shane Doan, whose attempt from the slot had caromed off defenseman Aaron Miller.