Kings’ Disaster Comes to Pass

A simple play turned into a disaster for the Kings, sending the Philadelphia Flyers on their way to a 5-0 victory Thursday night.

Neither team had scored into the 15th minute of the first game of the Kings’ most crucial trip of the season, a five-game swing through the Eastern time zone, and the Kings still had a chance to gain two points in the playoff race.

The Edmonton Oilers, seven points ahead of the Kings in the race for eighth place, already trailed the Detroit Red Wings by two goals on their way to a 6-2 loss.

Brad Chartrand was headed up the right side of the ice, carrying the puck out of the King zone and just about to cross into the neutral zone, when he sent a seemingly harmless pass behind him to defenseman Jaroslav Modry.

The puck never got there, bouncing over Modry’s stick.

An alert Radovan Somik of the Flyers jumped on it and skated in alone on goaltender Jamie Storr, who stopped Somik’s initial shot but was unable to cover the puck, Somik sending it right back at him and, this time, past him.

It was the only goal the stingy Flyers needed to send the Kings to their 11th loss in 13 road games since Dec. 11, goaltender Roman Cechmanek stopping 28 shots for only his second shutout of the season and 16th of his career.

In front of 19,391 in the First Union Center, the Kings fell behind, 2-0, in the third minute of the second period, then gave up three goals in the third, one into an empty net, after Storr was pulled in favor of Cristobal Huet, who made his NHL debut.

“I tried to give him a good angle to pass it back to me,” Modry said of Chartrand, “but it just jumped over my stick. The guy [Somik] just swung around and was skating right into the puck. I tried to whack him and at least knock him down, but I couldn’t reach him. And then I couldn’t get back in time.”

His heart sank, but he didn’t believe the Kings were sunk.

“One mistake can’t put us down,” he said. “We’re a good team. If you want to be a contender, if you want to be a playoff team, you’ve got to bounce back.”

The Kings never did and Coach Andy Murray called time out midway through the second period, gathering them around the bench and railing at them as the ESPN cameras zeroed in on his taut, angry expression.

“There was half a hockey game left and we were making it too easy on them, we thought,” Murray said. “We had to play harder.”

If they did, it didn’t show.

And it got only easier for the Flyers, who have struggled to score all season and had won only once in their previous six home games. Eric Chouinard scored two goals and Eric Desjardins had three assists.

Murray said he was not displeased with Storr -- “Our goaltender was the least of our problems,” he said -- but wanted to rest him for tonight’s game at Buffalo, N.Y., while also hoping to get a spark from Huet, a 27-year-old Frenchman.

And the Kings, only one point ahead of the 11th-place Nashville Predators after the Predators’ 4-1 victory Thursday night over the Calgary Flames, said they hadn’t noticed that the Oilers were losing big at Detroit.

“It’s obvious that we should only worry about ourselves,” defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “We have to concentrate on what we’re doing. Tonight was just a poor effort. We know we can’t afford these kinds of games.”