Hoping to Taste the Past

This is where it started a year ago. This is where the Kings shed a 14-game playoff losing streak, fashioned an improbable comeback and scripted one of the most unforgettable chapters in a 35-year history rich in disappointment.

Down but not out after losing the first two games of a Stanley Cup playoff series against the Detroit Red Wings, they produced a tense, 2-1 Game 3 victory at Staples Center and parlayed it into a stunning first-round upset, winning the final four games of the Western Conference quarterfinal matchup.

Other than the obvious, however, the Kings see little similarity between the situation they faced then and their plight today, trailing the Colorado Avalanche, 2-0, going into Game 3 tonight at Staples Center.

In their first two games against the Red Wings last April, they say, they were dreadful, uninvolved and uninspired.

Against the Avalanche, they have been much more competitive.

“Last year,” Coach Andy Murray said Sunday, “I would have said after [the first two games], ‘The great hope [lies] in the fact that we haven’t started to play.’ This year, I’ll say there’s great hope because we only have to fine-tune things....

“This year, you can hang your hat on effort, enthusiasm and passion and you can recognize that there are only a few things you have to adjust to allow your team to be more successful.”

Still, the Kings face long odds against the Avalanche, defending Stanley Cup champion and brimming with confidence and added firepower since the return of Peter Forsberg, who had five points in the Avalanche’s 4-3 and 5-3 victories.

Dating to 1939, when the NHL introduced the format, teams that have won the first two games of best-of-seven playoff series have gone on to win the series nearly 87% of the time.

The Avalanche is 9-0 in this situation, never needing more than six games to close out the series, winning all but three in four or five.

Before last season, the Kings were 0-8 in playoff series after losing the first two games and had been swept in five, among them four in a row.

What’s past, however, is of little concern to these Kings.

“I don’t really want to look back at last year,” captain Mattias Norstrom said. “What happened there, it happened last year. The thing we’ve done this year that I felt we didn’t do against Detroit, we’ve played some good hockey. Not good enough to win but ... we’ve done some good things.”

While scoring six goals against Avalanche goaltender Patrick Roy, however, the Kings have given up nine against a team that struggled to score all season, setting franchise records for fewest goals and most times shut out.

The fault, Murray said, does not all lie with the King defense. Rather, he said, the Kings have played fast and loose with the puck, resulting in turnovers.

“We’re trying to play tight defensively,” he said. “I think in a lot of cases [the breakdown] hasn’t been the play when we don’t have the puck, which is your defensive emphasis. It’s been what we’ve done with the puck when we’ve had it offensively that has created opportunities for them.

“We are emphasizing defensive structure, but we’ve been stressed a few times defensively because we’ve given the puck back to them. There’s a saying, ‘When you’re a good checker, don’t give the puck back to the other team just so you can prove it.’ We’ve given them the puck a few too many times.”

Even so, the Kings stayed close, for whatever that’s worth.

If nothing else, it gives them hope they can carry into Staples Center, where they are 9-0-2 since March 2, when they lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-0.

For the next two games anyway--Game 4 is Tuesday night--they can forget that their road winless streak reached eight games with the two losses at Denver.

“If we went in there and lost two games where we didn’t get nothing and we got dominated, we’d probably be more discouraged,” center Jason Allison said. “But the way we played, we realize we’re right there. We can still win the series.”

It just won’t be easy.

No matter the circumstances, turnarounds such as the Kings’ against the Red Wings last season aren’t often repeated.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

RESULTS, SCHEDULE

Avalanche leads best-of-seven series, 2-0; All times PDT; x-if necessary

*--* Game 1: Colorado 4, Kings 3 Game 2: Colorado 5, Kings 3 Game 3: Tonight at Kings, 7 p.m., Fox Sports Net Game 4: Tuesday at Kings, 7 p.m., Fox Sports Net Game 5: Thursday at Colorado, 6:30 p.m.-x, Fox Sports Net Game 6: Saturday at Kings, 3 p.m.-x, Channel 7 Game 7: April 29 at Colorado, 6:30 p.m.-x, Fox Sports Net

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