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Playoff Hopes Will Rise or Fall on Ziggy’s Stardust

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If there’s a team to watch in Los Angeles right now, it’s the Kings.

Key players can’t be sure where they’ll be living next year or even next week, guys are dropping all around them like extras in “Saving Private Ryan,” and yet the Kings keep making an improbable push for the playoffs.

“It’s been a weird season,” defenseman Aaron Miller said. “A lot of injuries and a lot of talk about unrestricted free agents and this and that. There’s a lot of distractions, but I think we’ve battled hard. We don’t have the greatest record, but we’ve been battling hard here the last month or so. We’re sticking around. We’re still in it.”

Before the game, the reading of the list of injured Kings takes longer than “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Concussions alone have benched four players. Jason Allison has injuries caused by other injuries. Adam Deadmarsh got knocked so silly the closest he gets to the ice is to stand on the bench and watch practice to see if he can follow the action. They don’t have No. 1 goalie Felix Potvin.

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Despite all of the injuries, talking about the Kings and the playoffs isn’t the setup for a punch line. They’re in the midst of a four-game homestand that will probably determine their fate. After a 2-1 loss to the Mighty Ducks on Tuesday night, they face a showdown with Edmonton (current occupant of the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot) on Thursday.

“Maybe it’s less pressure,” Bryan Smolinski said. “We’re on the outside looking in. It’s easy to pack it in when you’re missing 10 guys at a time. We lost three guys in a day. You can always make excuses, but this is a great bunch of guys.”

There’s a lesson in here for the Clippers. If their players want to make money, if they want management to keep the team together, this is how it’s done. Get out there and make a case. Force the issue.

They don’t ask for sympathy. They don’t seek glory, either.

Ask Smolinski what’s up with his recent run of 11 goals in 15 games and he says, “It’s what I’m supposed to do.”

Miller can become a free agent after the season, which might make it tempting to trade him now to get something in return. Whenever he calls home his wife wonders if he’s going to tell her to start packing boxes. Another ready-made excuse for poor play, only Miller refuses to accept it.

“All I can do is play hard,” Miller said. “I hope I stay here. But if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t work out. It’s part of our game, part of our job. Right now I want to win some games and make it as hard as I possibly can for them to trade me.”

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There’s a certain predictability in a hockey dressing room. When teams are winning it’s because they’re working hard. When they’re losing it’s because they’re getting outworked.

“Cliches, cliches,” Smolinski said. “But that’s the bottom line.”

But Ziggy Palffy’s performance over the last month goes beyond effort. He’s playing at a superstar level, making the game look as easy as when Mario Lemieux plays.

Every team needs effort from the role players. General Manager Dave Taylor cited rookie Chris Schmidt and journeyman Derek Armstrong for their efforts during the Kings’ surge in February, their first winning month of the season.

But it takes superstars to take a team places.

Palffy is leading the way, with 17 goals and 15 assists in the last 21 games, including his tying goal in the third period Tuesday. And he’s working harder than ever at the defensive end. Through 59 games he had a plus/minus of plus-15.

Talk about taking over. Palffy won’t let anything deny him, not even a teammate. Tuesday night Palffy swooped in on a pass meant for Derek Armstrong and beat Jean-Sebastien Giguere for a goal that tied the score, 1-1, in the third period.

Palffy always seems to be at the right place. The puck finds him, and he knows exactly what to do with it.

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“I don’t know how you define that,” Coach Andy Murray said. “His game is just good right now. He’s got such a good game in all areas. He’s backchecking, he’s killing penalties. He’s done this through all the speculation that he was the guy that was going to be moved. He’s just continued to play hard for us.

“It’s Ziggy Palffy showing what we all believed, that he’s one of the elite players in the NHL. At times I don’t even know if he believes it himself, how good he really is.”

Murray believes. That’s why he’s riding Palffy like the Pony Express, playing him 25 minutes or more in recent games.

“I don’t mind,” Palffy said. “It’s a great feeling if you’re on the ice and you’re making plays. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

They need him on the ice, because it seems as though every time he’s there he creates scoring opportunities. He’s double-shifting and serving on the power-play and penalty-killing units.

About a month ago Taylor acknowledged entertaining trade offers for Palffy, who has $7 million coming next season, the last in his contract.

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The next game I watched Palffy dance around two players to score a pretty goal against the Carolina Hurricanes. One thought raced through my mind: There’s no way they can trade this guy. No one else on the team can do what he does. No combination of players they could reasonably expect to receive in a trade could replace him.

The players don’t believe King President Tim Leiweke when he says the team is watching money circle the drain. But if the Kings can make the playoffs and bring in some extra postseason revenue they can help balance the books themselves.

“I think that the better we play, the better the chances are that this team stays together,” Miller said. “It’s a great team we have here. We want to stay in this and make a run at this thing.”

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J.A. Adande can be reached at: j.a.adande@latimes.com.

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