King Demitra Takes Three

Pavol Demitra wasted a Kings’ promotion.

King caps were handed out to the announced sellout crowd of 18,118 Saturday and many of those freebies were happily returned late in the third period, when Demitra buried a second chance to give the Kings a 4-3 victory over the Colorado Avalanche at Staples Center.

Demitra fired his own rebound into the net with 3 minutes 32 seconds left for his third goal, bringing a hail of caps from the crowd.

“You know that’s a nice promotion,” Kings’ forward Eric Belanger said. “Maybe we should do it every night.”

Demitra’s star-of-the-game night held up because of the Mathieu Garon ballet in net. Garon stopped 34 of 37 shots, but even he was ready to tip his cap to Demitra.

“Pavol got us the lead,” said Garon, who made a split-legged save with two minutes left, another in a handful of acrobatic saves during the game. “When he got that last goal, I knew we would stick together and hang on.”

The fourth hat trick of Demitra’s career propelled the Kings back into first place in the Pacific Division, two points ahead of Dallas.

“The puck was coming my way tonight, it was fun,” said Demitra, whose last hat trick was Nov. 29, 2002, against Calgary. “It was a team effort. We deserved to win that game.”

Demitra tied the score, 1-1, 12:12 into the first period, taking a breakaway up the ice for a short-handed goal. He gave the Kings a 3-2 lead 5:12 into the third period by firing a puck off the leg of defenseman Patrice Brisebois for a goal.

“I was lucky tonight,” Demitra said.

Garon was making his fifth consecutive start, the longest streak of his brief NHL career. The Kings have a 4-1 record in those five games.

Garon was brilliant at times, performing flip-flop deflections and more than once doing the splits to extend his body in making the save.

“That was athleticism out there, tremendous athleticism,” said King goaltender consultant Andy Nowicki.

Said Garon: “The way I play, when I get a lot of work, it gets easier for me.”

The Avalanche peppered Garon with five shots on its first power play, which came 1:34 into the game. Garon’s workout continued throughout the evening.

“He is so good at getting to that second shot and taking away everything down low,” defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “You look back and he’s done the splits and the puck is under his leg or arm. He’s very flexible.

“Of course, as a defenseman, you’re not happy when you see that because it means there has been a breakdown somewhere and he’s had to make a great save.”

That, and some bad luck, happened too often on Saturday.

Pierre Turgeon kept the Avalanche in the game. He twice tied the score with goals and also assisted on Alex Tanguay’s deflection that gave Colorado a 1-0 lead 7:29 into the game.

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The Kings recalled forward Ryan Finn from minor league Manchester and sent goaltender Adam Hauser back to the American Hockey League team.