Never Too Late for a King First

I am the hottest player on hockey’s hottest team.

I am its highest paid player.

I am its leading goal scorer.

I am engaged to a fitness model named Zora.

I have a poodle named Aida.

Who am I?

Don’t know?

Good.

*

Ziggy Palffy shrugged.

“I like it when people don’t recognize you,” he said. “That way, you can do what you want.”

Sneak around the net, for instance, and score two goals Saturday in the Kings’ 3-0 shutout of the San Jose Sharks.

Score 30 points in the last 29 games to lead the Kings into first place, for another thing.

Walk the beach, for another.

“Where I’m from, everybody always watching you, everybody always talking behind your back, you can’t do nothing,” said the celebrated Slovakian winger. “Here, it’s good.”

Good and quiet.

Palffy could be the star of this team on the basis of his name alone--The Ziggy Follies! ZigAlert!--but he notes that his family back home doesn’t even call him Ziggy.

“It’s Zigo,” he said.

Palffy could be a star here the way Luc Robitaille and Rob Blake were once stars, but he deflects more than pucks.

“You don’t want to talk to him?” he asked reporters Saturday, pointing to Jason Allison.

As the Kings slide into what could be their best spring in nearly a decade, Palffy could be their face, their voice, their smile.

Instead, he’s their enigma.

What they see off the ice has sometimes been what they get during games.

Too many shadows. Too much silence. Too soft. Until now.

“Ziggy can be like a Joe Sakic for our team,” said Ian Laperriere, referring to last year’s league MVP. “If he competes, he’s got all the skills, and that’s what he’s been showing the last couple of months.”

Not that he ever intends to show anything.

“In hockey, we have helmets,” Palffy said with a relieved smile. “Nobody sees you under the helmets.”

He is so into this “Hollow Man” thing, earlier this year he tried to sneak into a game in the Winter Olympics, playing for his native Slovakia against Germany even though King officials asked him to skip that game.

He had just played for the Kings the night before. They wanted him to rest a day before playing. But Slovakia was losing to Germany, so midway through the second period, he took the ice.

“Maybe they didn’t notice,” he said afterward.

Oh, the Kings noticed.

“A reporter called me and told me about it,” said Coach Andy Murray with a grin.

Geez, no wonder the guy doesn’t like talking to us.

The Kings forbade him to play the next day against Latvia before returning to the team. He followed orders. Slovakia lost and was eliminated from the tournament.

Even now, when asked whether he understood the Kings’ position, Palffy frowned and said, “I didn’t say that.”

But, he added, “The Kings have to be my priority. I know that now.”

That has been about his only mistake since returning from the lineup from a rib injury in January. Since that time, the Kings have won 22 of 32 games, and Palffy has been their best, if not most obscure, player.

“He’s a rare bird,” said teammate Jaroslav Modry.

How about those two Saturday sightings?

In the first period, he chipped a shot off the pads of Shark goalie Evgeni Nabokov, corralled the rebound, and knocked a second shot over the guy.

In the second period, standing on the same right side of the goal, he stopped a rebound of a Modry shot and stuck it past Nabokov again.

Both times, he succeeded by working without the puck, under the radar, away from the glare.

“When he wants to play--when he wants to step up and become a good team player--it’s scary,” Modry said.

And when he doesn’t, well, witness last spring’s second round of the playoffs against the Colorado Avalanche.

Seven games, two points, too hollow.

He was subtly criticized by Murray throughout the series, and heard every word.

“Andy is always getting on me,” he said. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad.”

Then, by the middle of this season, his linemates from that playoff series--Robitaille and Jozef Stumpel--had been essentially sent packing.

“It was hard for them, hard for me,” he said.

But now, finally, he seems to understand.

Three years after arriving here from the New York Islanders--where he became a high-scoring star for a team that never made the playoffs--his job has changed.

He can score here, but he also needs to help others score. He needs to pass. He needs to defend.

Said Palffy: “I’ve grown enough to understand it’s about the team now. It’s about helping everyone else.”

Said Murray: “Every year, he’s made improvements in that area.”

And now that the Kings are playing well enough to steal a second seeding in the playoffs, well enough to advance past the second round for only the second time in team history?

That would indeed put Palffy in a position to be recognized as one of the league’s best players. Maybe even its most valuable.

But you didn’t read it here.

*

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.