Unlikely King Plays the Hero

Ian Laperriere, the Kings’ hyperkinetic forward, all but laughed it off last month when he failed to convert a penalty shot in a loss at Montreal, telling anybody who would listen, “I’m not a goal scorer.”

He’ll have a hard time convincing anybody who saw him score two goals Monday night in the Kings’ 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils, including the winner on a nifty backhand with 2:05 to play at Continental Airlines Arena.

After Eric Belanger’s shot from the slot was stopped by Devil goaltender Martin Brodeur, Laperriere picked up the rebound to the right of the net on the forehand side of his stick. Patiently but quickly, he shifted the puck to his backhand side and lifted a shot into the wide-open net as Brodeur scrambled to get back into position.

Laperriere, who also scored a second-period goal, doubled his season output in helping the Kings extend their winning streak to three games.

“I’m still not a goal scorer,” he said again afterward, though not as convincingly as he had in Montreal. “I just had good chances tonight and put them in....

“Trust me, I want to score every game. I’m not a goal scorer, but I want to score every game. I don’t have the chances to score every game--I do other stuff out there--but tonight I didn’t have time to think. Maybe it’s when I think that I struggle. I didn’t have time to think there. I saw the open net and put it in.”

Unable to build on a 2-1 lead when they failed to score or even get a shot on goal during a five-on-three power play late in the second period, the Kings saw the Devils tie the score on a goal by Jay Pandolfo with 11:13 remaining.

Then, with the clock winding down, Laperriere put them back on top, sending many in the crowd of 13,638 toward the exits.

“Eric just went to the net and I gave him the puck,” Laperriere said of the winning play, which started with his pass to Belanger, who assisted on both of his linemate’s goals and has four points in two games. “I stayed around the net just to see what was going to happen. The rebound just came to me and I had an open net.

“It could have gone the other way. In the first 32 games of the year, they were all going the other way. I was lucky enough that it came right back on my tape.”

It was good sign for the Kings, who opened their five-game trip Saturday with a 3-0 victory over the New York Islanders.

“Couldn’t be better,” Coach Andy Murray said.

The Kings have lost only one of their last nine road games, winning six and tying two since Dec. 8, when they lost to the St. Louis Blues, 2-0, and dropped six games below .500 to equal their low-water mark of the season.

Now, after a 9-2-3 run, they’re one game over .500 for the first time this season and only three points out of a playoff spot.

“We seem to be a team that doesn’t quit,” winger Steve Heinze said. “We get behind the eight-ball, we work even harder. You know, all those cliches. Hopefully, we don’t have to get the gun to our head before we start playing well and now we’ll just be consistent all the time.”

It will help if players such as Laperriere, who usually leaves his mark in opponent’s bruises, can help with the offensive load.

“We need those guys to produce for us,” defenseman Mathieu Schneider said. “That’s a big part of our success. Other teams are going to key on our top guys. We need those other guys to score goals in games like this, when tight checking becomes a huge part of the game.

“You look at the teams that have success [such as] Detroit and Colorado--their role players are the ones that put them over the top.

“If we get that, we’re going to have a lot of success.”

One of their top guys, Adam Deadmarsh, scored first for the Kings, his team-leading 15th goal tying the score at 1-1 with 5:52 to play in the first period after John Madden had given the Devils an early 1-0 lead.

Laperriere scored his first goal on an unusual play, pouncing on the puck as it squirted out of a faceoff in the Devil zone and firing it quickly at the net.

It was a designed play, what Murray called “a double block.”

The winner, though, was all improvisation, a startling flash of skating and puck-handling skill by a player who rarely gets a chance to display either.

“It was a big goal for our team,” Laperriere said, grinning.