The Seven-Game Itch

History repeated itself.

Lightning struck twice.

Squaring their first-round Stanley Cup playoff series at three victories apiece, the Kings defeated the Colorado Avalanche, 3-1, in Game 6 on Saturday in front of 18,449 at Staples Center, forcing the Avalanche to play a series-deciding game against them for the second consecutive year.

Game 7 is at Denver on Monday night, by which time coaches Andy Murray of the Kings and Bob Hartley of the Avalanche might have buried the hatchet.

Into each other, probably.

The two teams have played 13 playoff games in the last 12 months, with the Avalanche parlaying a 5-1 victory over the Kings in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals last May to the Stanley Cup championship, and perhaps they’ve seen enough of each other.

After Avalanche left wing Brad Larsen mugged King defenseman Andreas Lilja along the boards in the closing seconds Saturday, Murray jumped onto the King bench and screamed toward the Avalanche bench. Hartley gave it right back.

“I was just asking about what time the ice time was for practice on Monday in Colorado and he said, ‘I think it’s 11 o’clock,’” Murray said afterward, tongue firmly in cheek. “And I said, ‘No, I think it’s 11:30.’

“We went back and forth like that a little bit.”

Turning serious, Murray said, “We do things a little differently.

Pressed to elaborate, the coach said, “They’ve got a lot of classy players on that team. I respect their players a great deal.”

Hartley, following Murray into the interview room, implied that the Kings had not been fair in their treatment of Avalanche forward Peter Forsberg, who sat out Saturday because of a leg injury. And he was clearly perturbed that the first question put to him was about his verbal spat with Murray.

“I don’t even understand your question,” he said in his clipped French accent. “You listen to radio, you watch TV, you read the papers, it’s Andy, Andy, Andy all the time. He’s the guy who gets the most coverage in that first round when you guys should focus on Sakic, on Blake, on Roy, on Potvin, Smolinski, Allison, Palffy. Even his players are fully aware of this. I have no energy to waste with this.”

Asked if he were fed up, Hartley added, “My parents always taught me not to waste time with 4-feet-6 guys. There’s no sense even wasting time.”

Perhaps Hartley was upset that Murray had all but guaranteed a Game 6 victory for the Kings, writing on a grease board before Game 5, “Win Thursday and we will be playing Game 7 Monday,” and his players had delivered.

In any event, the postgame sideshow was at least as entertaining as the game.

The Kings, trying to become the 17th team in NHL history to rally from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven playoff series after falling one victory short against the Avalanche a year ago, led almost from start to finish.

Jason Allison scored a goal off his right leg 81 seconds into the game, Brad Chartrand scored the first playoff goal of his career about five minutes later and the Kings again got stellar efforts from their defensive corps and goaltender Felix Potvin. They’ve given up only three goals in winning three of the last four games.

Potvin, who made 23 saves, gave up only a second-period goal by Riku Hahl, ending the goaltender’s shutout streak after 125 minutes 3 seconds.

It only provided the final margin, however, because earlier in the period Bryan Smolinski had scored to give the Kings a 3-0 advantage, the biggest lead either team has enjoyed in a tightly contested, physical series.

The Kings, playing without injured regulars Adam Deadmarsh and Philippe Boucher, killed six penalties, all after they’d scored their first two goals.

“In our barn when we get the lead, it seems to fuel us,” defenseman Aaron Miller said after the Kings had improved to 11-1-2 at Staples Center since March 2. “We come out real hard in this rink.

“Now we’re going to have to do it on the road. It’s going to be a hostile environment, but we’re just happy to have that game. I think we earned that Game 7, and now we’ve got to work that much harder to win it.”

Asked about his coach the prognosticator, Miller said, “Did he say we were going to win Game 7? I didn’t see him out there with skates helping us out.”

Miller grinned.

“He wants his team to win and he’ll do anything to help us win,” he said of Murray, who actually is about 5-10, despite what Hartley says. “If he thinks saying something in the paper will fuel us or spark us, that’s what he’s going to try.

“We play for each other in here.”