Kings Fall to Inspired Red Wings

The mayor of Hockeytown was back, greeted by a rousing ovation from a sellout crowd and providing an emotional lift for the Detroit Red Wings, but Steve Yzerman’s return Monday night meant little to the Kings.

Sentiment has no place in the playoff race.

The Kings need victories.

So every time the Red Wings threatened to put them away in front of the usual 20,058 in Joe Louis Arena, they kept battling back.

In the end, though, their determined effort left them with nothing more than a generally positive feeling and a 5-4 loss to carry with them to Pittsburgh, where their trip continues tonight against the Penguins.

“I tried to tell the guys after the game that I’d like to think this is a mirror of our season, that we’re going to continue to battle right to the end of the year,” Coach Andy Murray said. “There were so many times tonight where our team could have just faded away and we didn’t do that.

“We may be limping in here to play a great team and it’s a special night for them, having Steve Yzerman back, but we played hard. We competed.”

But they lost.

They’re 1-2 on this trip and have lost three of their last five.

Still, with 3 1/2 minutes to play, they had trimmed a three-goal deficit to 4-3 and had a man advantage with Yzerman in the penalty box for slashing.

They had visions of ruining Yzerman’s first game since radical knee surgery in August, a realignment of the joint performed mostly on older people to give them more mobility and improve their quality of life, not to prolong an athlete’s career.

They were positioned to slow the charging Red Wings, who have won six of their last seven to move into the Central Division lead.

But as the Kings tried to press the issue with time running out on the penalty, Brendan Shanahan poked the puck from defenseman Jaroslav Modry, raced into the King zone and fed a pass back between his legs to Sergei Fedorov.

Fedorov danced around defenseman Dimitry Yushkevich, skated in alone on goaltender Jamie Storr and put the Red Wings ahead, 5-3, with 3:07 to play.

The Kings kept coming, though, and Derek Armstrong scored only 61 seconds later, but it was too little too late.

Their opportunity had been lost.

“The unfortunate part is, we scored four goals in Detroit against the Red Wings and we lost,” Murray said. “That’s disappointing.”

They seemed not to get caught up in the hoopla of Yzerman’s return, which was cause for celebration among the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation at the start and cheered him throughout, even though he was hardly a factor.

“We’ve got to worry about ourselves and we went out there with that attitude,” King winger Steve Heinze said. “No matter if there’s a standing O for No. 19 or not, it’s still a big game for us.”

Inspired perhaps by the return of their longtime captain, who said he was “kind of anxious” but “enjoyed being out there” again, the Red Wings carried the play early, outshooting the Kings, 11-5, in the first period.

But the Kings held them off until Brett Hull scored from a difficult angle from the bottom of the right faceoff circle with 4:22 to play in the first period.

Goals by Igor Larionov, Kirk Maltby and Tomas Holmstrom, countered only by a second-period power-play goal by defenseman Mathieu Schneider, gave the Red Wings a 4-1 lead late in the second period.

But the Kings closed the gap on goals by Ian Laperriere and Eric Belanger, Belanger’s goal making the score 4-3 with 6:52 remaining.

“It’s tough to play catch-up against a team like that,” Heinze said. “To our credit, we did play hard and kept ourselves in the game, but you don’t want to ever have to be coming from behind against them.”