De Vries Is Perfect for This Role

Every year, it’s the same thing.

The NHL’s big-name players get the media hype before the playoffs begin, but once the games start, it’s usually role players who step up with the big plays.

This story line held true again in the Kings’ 4-3 loss to Colorado in Game 1 of their first-round series against Colorado on Thursday night at the Pepsi Center.

Peter Forsberg had two assists, Joe Sakic scored a goal and Patrick Roy finished with 26 saves, but Colorado’s hero was often-overlooked defenseman Greg de Vries.

Despite having only eight goals and 20 points in 82 regular-season games, De Vries scored the game’s most important goal with 5:34 left in the third period.

“I happened to go to the net after [Mike Keane] and [Eric Messier] did a great job of creating traffic,” said De Vries, who scored his first playoff goal in 67 postseason games, the third longest playoff drought in NHL history. “I was just there to pick the puck up. I took a whack at it and found the back of the net.... I don’t know what took me so long to score a playoff goal.”

With the majority of the pre-series media attention going to Forsberg, who returned to the ice after sitting out nearly a year because of an assortment of injuries, role players for both teams were pushed to the background.

They just didn’t stay there long.

Colorado’s Alex Tanguay and Steven Reinprecht were hardly talked about before Game 1, but stepped up to give the Avalanche a 2-0 lead.

“Anyone can score, especially in the playoffs,” Colorado defenseman Darius Kasparaitis said. “Anybody can be a hero. That’s why you have to concentrate on everybody. If you look at the first night of the playoffs, the guys who scored the winning OT goals [for Vancouver and Philadelphia] were players no one expected to do that. You have to always go hard and try to stop everybody.”

Tanguay skates on Colorado’s top line but is usually overshadowed because Sakic also skates on that line. But it was Tanguay who brought the sellout crowd to its feet when he scored off a pass from Chris Drury, a key playoff role player for the Avalanche the last two years.

Tanguay’s seventh career postseason goal was as impressive as they come. He dragged the puck around King goalie Felix Potvin and sliding defenseman Aaron Miller before knocking it into an open net.

“Chris just made a great pass and then I saw [Miller] come diving in,” said Tanguay, who had 13 goals and 48 points during the season. “I was a little surprised to see Potvin come out of the net like that. It was surprising because we hadn’t seen him do that much and then I think he got hit by Miller.”

Colorado scored its second goal in similar fashion. This time it was unheralded Colorado defenseman Martin Skoula who jumped into the spotlight first. With Los Angeles’ defense reeling early in the second period, Skoula skated untouched into the King zone before finding Reinprecht alone near the slot, making it easy for the former King to give the Avalanche a 2-0 lead.

That’s when two Los Angeles role players, Cliff Ronning and Bryan Smolinski, got into the act.

After the Kings killed Colorado’s first power-play attempt, Ronning helped his team into its second man-advantage situation of the game when he was tripped on a breakaway. Then he set up Smolinski for the Kings’ first goal on the power play.

“We have very talented players in [Jason] Allison, [Adam] Deadmarsh, [Ziggy] Palffy, but a lot of times it’s important to have second, third and fourth lines step up their game and play better in the playoffs,” said Ronning.

For the next 25 minutes, the big-name players such as Palffy and Sakic took over, combining for the game’s next three goals, setting the stage for De Vries.

“It was great to see Peter back out there and Patty gave us a lift with his play again,” said De Vries. “We know what we have to do. Now we have to do better in Game 2.”