Good News Comes in 3s

For the Kings, three is the key.

When they’ve scored at least three goals this season, they’re 14-0-1-1. When they haven’t, they’re 1-12-3-2, their only victory by 2-0 over the Dallas Stars.

“We think that with our goaltending and our defense, if we score three goals, we’ll win all the time,” Coach Andy Murray said. “We’ve talked about that as a team. We think we’ve got a chance to win if we score one because we can shut teams out, or if we get two, we’ve got a chance.

“But if we get three, it’s pretty well guaranteed we’re going to win because we play pretty good defense. That’s the way we look at it.

“Our magic number is three.”

Eighteen times in 34 games, however, they’ve failed to reach it.

They’ve waited more than a year for consistent so-called secondary scoring to develop in support of their top line of Jason Allison, Ziggy Palffy and Adam Deadmarsh and a prolific defense corps led by Mathieu Schneider and Jaroslav Modry. But Murray said he is not particular about who scores.

“I don’t think it matters where it comes from,” he said. “It’s good for how players feel about themselves when they notch a goal or two. They have a bit of a better stride at practice the next day.

“But we don’t really care where the goals come from.”

The Kings average 2.71 goals a game, up from last season’s 2.61.

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The Kings, 12-12-4-3 since a 3-0 start, are only four points ahead of their pace from last season, when they were 13-14-5-2 after 34 games, good for 11th place in the Western Conference. They’re 10th in the West this morning.... Because of injuries, the No. 1 line of Allison, Palffy and Deadmarsh has been intact for only eight games, but they’ve made the most of them, notching 13 goals and 19 assists.