Victory Is a Shot in the Arm for Kings

There was talk in the King locker room of setting a record, and for the first time in a while, it had nothing to do with injuries.

Friday night was supposed to be a party for new Pittsburgh Penguin goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, but it turned into a roast for a Pittsburgh offense that mustered only 11 shots, tying a record for fewest shots in a game in the Penguins’ 37-year history.

The display of futility came against a threadbare King defense that lost another defenseman along the way, but otherwise looked stout and stubborn in a 3-0 victory before a sold-out crowd of 16,986 at Mellon Arena.

And with that, an agonizing Thursday night debacle was wiped away, the mental snapshot of Steve Yzerman’s game-winning goal for Detroit with 1.7 seconds left retreating further into memory, at least for now.

“Some of our better players played better tonight,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “We had an outstanding effort from the [Eric] Belanger [checking] unit against the [Mario] Lemieux unit. They did a great job tonight.”

Pittsburgh’s shot total was almost a new low for King opponents, but the Penguins had one more than the 10 offered up by San Jose in 1994.

In any event, it was a refreshing change for the Kings (1-1-0-0), who spent most of training camp discussing the franchise record they set last season -- 536 man-games lost to injury.

The Kings reeled off 49 shots against Fleury, the most celebrated draft pick in Pittsburgh since Lemieux in 1984, and were never threatened.

Fleury played like a savvy veteran at times, like a teenager at others.

He surrendered a goal on the Kings’ first shot, a short-handed breakaway by Belanger 38 seconds into the game that was set up by Ian Laperriere’s up-ice feed.

Fleury settled in after that, including a stop on Ziggy Palffy’s breakaway at 7:18 of the second period.

But the Kings got to Fleury again, Trent Klatt deflecting Palffy’s shot from the point for a power-play goal at 15:43 of the second period.

The Penguins were called for two five-minute majors in the period, including Brooks Orpik’s kneeing penalty that sent Tim Gleason out of the game with a bruised left knee. Gleason is listed as day-to-day.

In all, the Penguins had 50 penalty minutes, the Kings nine.

“It was very disappointing, trying to [play short-handed] all night long,” said first-year Pittsburgh Coach Eddie Olczyk.

Palffy scored an empty-net goal with 38 seconds left.

Fleury finished with 46 saves.

“They’ve got a major cult hero here that’s a little bit older and they’ve got a young cult hero too,” Murray said.

King goaltender Cristobal Huet, who earned his first career victory last season in Pittsburgh, was untested and unperturbed while starting in place of Roman Cechmanek.

“We blocked a lot of shots,” said Huet.