Rivals Rise to Occasion in Energetic Showdown

With their season on the brink of a meltdown, with the stench of failure creeping in, the Kings, for once, said no.

No, they wouldn’t squander a lead for the second successive game.

No, they wouldn’t waste an emotional effort that set the glass rattling and the fans roaring at the Arrowhead Pond.

“It was a playoff game,” King center Eric Belanger said. “A lot of guys were banged up, but we kept going. Tonight, we had 20 guys going.”

The Kings and Mighty Ducks elevated each other’s game Friday, an effort that was as close to a playoff game as one -- or both -- might get this season. If it had been a playoff game, they might have kept skating and hitting and throwing themselves at shots all night, gloriously bruised and ragged.

But in Gary Bettman’s new NHL, ties cannot exist in the regular season. Unlimited overtime tends to wreck charter flights’ schedules, so to the shootout they went. The Kings prevailed there and left Anaheim with a 4-3 victory, exhausted yet exhilarated.

“Tonight there was a good feeling throughout the game because we were going,” defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “Some games, you’re just hanging on. Tonight, we played a good 60 minutes.”

Which raises the question as to why they can’t do that more often.

“It’s the eternal question for 30 teams in this league,” Norstrom said. “Sometimes before things get better, they have to get worse. You can say the right things, and we did that 10 days ago. You can talk all you want. Tonight, we brought it to the ice.”

Both teams brought every ounce of energy they possessed. The Kings, however, brought the larger contingent of fans, with their partisans outnumbering and out-yelling a Duck fan base that has had more than a decade to grow.

“We had a lot of fans here. We feel like we are home,” said Pavol Demitra, who opened the shootout with a wrist shot over the right shoulder of Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

“I think this was our best game in the last couple of weeks. We played strong for 60 minutes.

“This is a huge win for us. Everybody’s got so many points in this conference.”

The Kings appeared to be tumbling out of the Western Conference playoff scramble, having lost seven of their previous 10 games. Their power play had deteriorated into a cruel joke and their work ethic had become too inconsistent for a team that must rely on diligence to compensate for what it lacks in pure talent.

The Ducks, revamped by new General Manager Brian Burke, had started the season fitfully. They traded Sergei Fedorov for two journeymen and are awaiting a decent offer to trade Petr Sykora off their payroll. Yet, they had shown signs of life in the last few weeks by winning six of their previous nine games, their goaltending stabilizing and their offense coming from a variety of sources.

However, they have yet to win an overtime game or a shootout; they are 0-3 in each category. They gave themselves little chance Friday, as Teemu Selanne lost control of the puck when his elbow hit his hip, and Scott Niedermayer’s attempt to tuck the puck under Mathieu Garon was thwarted by the goalie’s pad.

“It’s disheartening for our players because we worked extremely hard and did a lot of good things,” Duck Coach Randy Carlyle said.

But it was not quite enough good things to beat the Kings, who put forth a resilient effort that belied their offensive struggles.

Unable to squeeze more offense from the dry well that is Jeremy Roenick and Luc Robitaille, King Coach Andy Murray left Robitaille out of the lineup Friday. The veteran left wing learned of his demotion only when Murray read off the line combinations and Robitaille’s name wasn’t mentioned.

According to Murray’s philosophy, no player is entitled to anything. And that’s as it should be. Ice time is a coach’s sole weapon against complacency and lethargy, a carrot dangled just beyond players’ reach to encourage diligence and reward success.

But if his players aren’t entitled to rest on past achievements, as Roenick and Robitaille clearly are not permitted to do, what of Murray?

Is the Kings’ coach still entitled to the trust of fans? Of his own players?

The Kings built a 2-0 lead Friday only to squander it and pull even on sheer chance and the carom of a puck off the skate of Duck defenseman Keith Carney. They’d taken a 2-0 lead over Washington into the third period on Wednesday and lost that too, falling, 3-2.

Murray cannot play defense or score power-play goals. But if other teams have found ways to defuse a King power play that was so potent early this season, it’s up to him to find ways to counter what opponents have done.

He has said that he doesn’t have the personnel to energize the power play, no defenseman to act as a quarterback or unleash booming shots from the point as Rob Blake used to do. True enough. But there are other ways to manufacture power-play goals, such as stationing a beefy forward in front of the net for deflections and rebounds, or instructing smaller players to simply head to the net.

Ultimately, it’s up to players to work hard and follow instructions, as they did Friday. But it’s up to Murray to devise a game plan to fit his players, not ask players to contort themselves to fit his game plan.

And if he doesn’t have the personnel, what does that say for General Manager Dave Taylor and the Kings’ plan to produce impact players through drafting and development?

The new collective bargaining agreement brought about the economic system they’d hoped for, as Tim Leiweke, president of their corporate parent, AEG, is fond of saying. Enough waiting. The heart and determination they showed Friday must become regular features, not emotions to be pulled out in moments of desperation.

Neither team has much time to reflect on Friday’s events. The Kings face Phoenix tonight at Staples Center; the Ducks are home for San Jose on Sunday. If they can bring to games against other opponents the level of passion they showed Friday, they won’t have to pretend they played a playoff game. They’ll be in the playoffs for real.