Kings Open New Season in the Black

With the knowledge that a smoother break from the gate last fall probably would have kept them out of Denver in April, the Kings will open their 36th NHL season tonight with a game against the Phoenix Coyotes at Staples Center.

The Kings’ 8-14-4-2 start last season was one of the worst in franchise history and doomed them, despite the league’s best record over the season’s last 4 1/2 months, to a first-round playoff matchup against the Colorado Avalanche.

The Avalanche, defending its 2001 Stanley Cup title, won the series with a 4-0 Game 7 victory at Denver, eliminating the Kings for the second consecutive season.

Many times since, King Coach Andy Murray has said the only difference in the series was that the Avalanche, seeded second in the Western Conference, carried home-ice advantage over the seventh-seeded Kings.

And so, if the sole purpose of a six-month, 82-game regular season is “positioning for the playoffs,” as King defenseman Mattias Norstrom said this week, the maneuvering starts tonight for the optimistic Kings, whose 95 points last season left them only four points behind the Avalanche.

After a pregame ceremony in which Wayne Gretzky’s jersey No. 99 will be retired, the Kings will break out their old black and silver uniforms and kick off the 10th season since their Gretzky-led run to the 1993 Stanley Cup finals.

With the goal of marking the anniversary with an encore appearance next spring, they’ll challenge the Coyotes with the same nucleus of players that compiled a league-best record of 32-13-7-2 after Dec. 8 last season, posted a franchise-record 2.29 goals-against average and excelled on special teams, leading the league on the power play and ranking third in penalty killing.

Other than defenseman Philippe Boucher, who signed with the Dallas Stars in July as an unrestricted free agent, all of their key components remain.

In other words, they have the same core group that stumbled last fall.

Murray has said the Kings overall played as well during the first two months last season, when they lost 10 of 12 one-goal decisions, as they did during the last four, when they won 14 of 20.

The difference, he hinted for the first time Tuesday, was that goaltender Felix Potvin wasn’t as sharp in the early going.

“We felt that with the shortened training camp, our goaltending wasn’t at the level it would normally be because our goalies hadn’t seen enough shots,” he said, referring to a truncated camp necessitated by a regular-season schedule that included a two-week Olympic break. “We had a better training camp schedule this year, but we also brought our goalies in 10 days before camp.”

Potvin and backup Jamie Storr will look out from the net at a familiar core of veteran players. Among them: a dangerous top line of Jason Allison, Ziggy Palffy and Adam Deadmarsh, plus a strong defense led by Norstrom, Mathieu Schneider and Aaron Miller. Miller, however, will start the season on injured reserve and probably will sit out until mid-November after off-season abdominal surgery.

But the 23-man roster, which was set Tuesday with the signing of free-agent defenseman Brad Norton to a one-year, $450,000 contract and the demotion of Jason Holland to the minors, also is sprinkled with newcomers.

Perhaps the most promising among them is Russian rookie Alexander Frolov. The 20-year-old right wing will start the season on the second line with Eric Belanger, an erstwhile checker who moves into an expanded role as the No. 2 center, and holdover Bryan Smolinski, who moves from center to wing.

Smolinski slumped to a career-low 13 goals last season, Belanger scored eight in a season limited to 53 games because of a wrist injury and Frolov scored 18 in 41 games in the Russian elite league, where he was the rookie of the year.

Murray has set a lofty goal for the trio: 75 goals.

“Don’t I always say you get from people what you expect of them?” the coach said. “If I expect Eric Belanger to get 10 goals and Alexander Frolov to get 10 and Bryan Smolinski to get what he got last year, that’s what we could be getting, so we’ve set the standard higher.

“That’s three 25-goal seasons, and all three guys are capable.”

Last season, Allison, Palffy and Deadmarsh combined for 80 goals, nearly 40% of the Kings’ total, and Palffy and Deadmarsh were the only Kings who scored more than 19, so three 25-goal seasons from the second line is a stretch, to say the least.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to dream.

At this point, anything is possible, including a fast start to the season leading to home-ice advantage in the playoffs next spring.