Devils Slip Past Kings

Pavel Rosa hadn’t scored an NHL goal in more than five years, but a phone call, a $360 cab ride and a well-timed deflection helped change that.

These days, the Kings will take goals any way then can get them.

Rosa’s effort wasn’t enough to keep the Kings from losing in overtime to the New Jersey Devils, 3-2, but it helped them snare a point Sunday against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

Paul Martin scored 3:53 into the extra session, delighting the crowd of 17,402 at Continental Airlines Arena and sending the Kings to their seventh overtime loss, tied for most in the league with the Mighty Ducks. The Kings are at it again, neither winning nor losing but earning enough points -- and just enough goals from unlikely sources -- to stay in the playoff hunt.

Their winless streak is only three games -- unlike their 14-game, 33-day winless streak that ended last month -- but the Kings are 2-1-1-2 on their current road swing, wedged somewhere between the guarantee of a playoff spot and the insecurity of not earning one. They wasted a two-goal lead against the Devils, but ...

“I won’t allow anybody to talk negative about our team because we battled,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “This is our sixth straight game on the road and we came in and played the defending Stanley Cup champions and got a point. We don’t have to face them until the Stanley Cup finals, if that happens, so I [couldn’t] care less if they got the extra point.”

One thing at a time: The Kings remained in seventh place in the Western Conference with a better effort than their 8-3 loss Friday to the Buffalo Sabres, where a 3-1 lead disappeared amid a mess of turnovers and shoddy goaltending.

Roman Cechmanek recovered from a poor outing to stop 32 shots against the Devils and talked to the media afterward, unlike Friday.

“If we want to play in the playoffs, we have to take a lot of steps up,” he said, slightly frustrated after being screened on the winning goal. “I feel we have to play a lot better than we are now. We have to play a lot better in the neutral zone. Teams have so many breakaways, three-on-twos, two-on-ones.”

Defenseman Tomas Zizka scored his first NHL goal to give the Kings a 2-0 lead on an afternoon when New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur was merely human. With the Kings on the power play, Zizka took a difficult-angle shot at the bottom of the left circle that deflected off Devil defenseman Scott Niedermayer and beat Brodeur to the glove side at 10:00 of the first period.

But the Kings’ story was Rosa, who hopped in a cab and went from Albany, N.Y., to the team hotel in Secaucus, N.J., after a Friday road night game with the Kings’ minor-league affiliate, Manchester, N.H.

Rosa opened the scoring Sunday by deflecting Tim Gleason’s shot in the slot at 7:34 of the first period, Rosa’s first NHL goal since Feb. 11, 1999.

Rosa has played sparsely for the Kings since being selected in the second round of the 1995 draft. He had four goals in 29 games with the Kings in 1998-99 and was scoreless in three NHL games in 1999-2000. He then played in Finland for two seasons and worked on improving his speed before returning to the U.S. last season, spending all of it with Manchester except for a scoreless two-game stint with the Kings.

Rosa led Manchester in scoring this season with 22 goals and 34 assists in 51 games and was called up after right wing Scott Barney injured his shoulder against Buffalo.

“Any time you get a chance to play in the NHL and to play against the New Jersey Devils, it’s special,” Rosa said. “Getting the goal against Marty Brodeur, one of the best goalies in the league, it’s pretty unbelievable.”

The comfort of a 2-0 lead vanished because the Kings’ penalty-killing faltered twice. Sergei Brylin scored after snapping in a loose puck in the slot at 18:20 of the first period and Jamie Langenbrunner deflected Martin’s slap shot 7:00 into the second period to tie the score.

“We take a 2-0 lead on the road, you expect to come out with a win,” forward Ian Laperriere said. “Our penalty kill’s got to be better.”

In overtime, John Madden won a faceoff in the King zone and Martin immediately converted it with a wrist shot to Cechmanek’s stick side.

“Some teams come in here and don’t get any points,” Laperriere said. “The rest of the league would be happy with a point.”

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Defenseman Jaroslav Modry returned to Los Angeles after the game to be with his wife, Jodi, who gave birth Sunday morning to the couple’s third child, Luke. Modry will not play today against the New York Islanders.