Frustration at Root of King Win

Jean-Sebastien Giguere couldn’t save the shot. Or his stick. Or the game.

The Mighty Duck goaltender, a microcosm of Saturday’s loss to the Kings, if not the Ducks’ season, snapped his paddle beyond repair on the right post after a second-period goal that framed the Ducks’ recurring frustrations and concurrently kept alive their rival’s playoff hopes in the Kings’ 4-2 victory.

On a night when Luc Robitaille matched last season’s total with his 11th goal, the normally calm Giguere, who has three victories in his last 19 starts, took a two-handed whack at the iron after Joe Corvo beat him from the slot. Giguere punctuated his anger by tossing the splintered stick across the ice, delighting a large majority of the sell-out crowd of 18,186 at Staples Center.

The Mighty Ducks: The Stanley Cup Finals last season, splintering at the seams this season.

At the other end of the ice, the Kings remained a point behind the Dallas Stars for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

Playing without four of their top six forwards because of injuries, the Kings were supposed to circle the blue line and win by 2-1 and 1-0 scores the rest of the season. Instead, they’ve scored four goals in three consecutive games and have won three of their last four since emerging from a 14-game winless streak.

“It’s great we got four goals but we can’t plan on that all the time,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “We’ve got to plan to win 2-1 on most nights.”

There were contributions from several sources Saturday. Robitaille, a healthy scratch in two games only two weeks ago, scored a point in his fourth consecutive game since returning. Rookie Esa Pirnes scored his first NHL goal, and Sean Avery, the NHL’s most penalized player, scored his fifth goal.

Giguere had seen enough after Corvo beat him on a drop pass from Alexander Frolov at 3:29 of the second period.

“It was just frustration,” Giguere said. “Shouldn’t be a part of the game. But sometimes you just get frustrated.”

Giguere managed to keep his stick in one piece after Robitaille scored on a shot in the slot at 17:49 of the second period. Robitaille, who had a career-low 31 points last season with the Detroit Red Wings, scored his 32nd point.

“I’m just going to keep it going for the rest of the year,” said Robitaille, who has 642 career goals, more than any other left wing in NHL history.

Robitaille, a link to the Kings’ past, stepped aside for part of the future at 7:11 of the first period.

Pirnes and fellow rookie Dustin Brown combined for the game’s first goal when Brown stopped abruptly at the top of the left circle and found Pirnes in the slot for a one-timer high to Giguere’s glove side.

It was the first goal in 25 NHL games for Pirnes, a sixth-round selection in last year’s draft, and the first point since Nov. 22 for Brown, who played for the first time after sitting out 26 games because of a severely sprained ankle.

“It was a big goal,” Murray said. “The percentages say if you get the first goal you’ve got a better chance of winning by 74.3%.”

The Ducks’ chances looked pretty good after a first period in which they outshot the Kings, 14-5, and took a 1-1 tie after 20 minutes. But the Kings broke the game open with three goals in the second period.

The Ducks could claim victory on the power play -- Rob Niedermayer scored on the man-advantage in the first period and Vaclav Prospal in the third -- but they were outscored at even strength, 4-0.

“You’ve got to stay patient and stick to your plan,” Duck Coach Mike Babcock said. “We didn’t do that tonight.”