Victory shows Kings may be on to something

After watching his goal-starved team score 11 times in its last two games before the All-Star break, Kings Coach Terry Murray spent much of the last week trying to figure out what had gone right -- and how to duplicate it.

He couldn’t fully explain it, but he came to one obvious conclusion. He had to keep center Jarret Stoll between wingers Kyle Calder and Dustin Brown and let them deepen the bond they had established in training camp but rekindled only occasionally while Murray constantly reconfigured his lines.

“They play hard. They score big goals. They really have some chemistry going,” Murray said Thursday. “I can’t answer it any other way. It’s just something that’s come together that they’re feeding off and energizing each other and playing hard for each other.

“We’ll leave it together for another game.”

Gee, there’s an idea.

Brown had two goals and an assist, Stoll scored a goal off a fine pass by Calder, and Patrick O’Sullivan had a short-handed goal in the second period to lead the Kings to a 5-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks at Staples Center, a performance that was admirable and maddening.

Admirable because it was fast, physical and a showcase for two young teams emerging from some dank, dark years, the Kings moving more slowly than the Blackhawks but still progressing.

Maddening because if the Kings are capable of scoring 16 goals in three games -- their most productive three-game stretch this season -- while playing decent defense and getting key saves from goaltender Jonathan Quick, it shouldn’t have taken them so long to put all these elements together.

This new scoring touch that helped extend their winning streak to three and move them to within four points of the five teams ranked seventh through 11th in the West -- where has it been until now?

“Hiding,” Stoll said, smiling.

“I don’t know. We’re scoring all of a sudden. We had that stretch where we didn’t think that we could even get one or two. It’s just doing those little things, those hard battles, getting in on the forecheck.”

Whatever it is, bottle it. Preserve it. Pack it carefully for the five-game trip that starts Saturday in Montreal -- and with forward Oscar Moller along for the ride and close to returning from a fractured collarbone.

The Kings built a 3-0 lead before Chicago bested Quick on a long slap shot by Dave Bolland at 7:31 of the third period. Alexander Frolov, who has also awakened offensively, scored his fourth goal in four games to rebuild a three-goal margin.

Although the Blackhawks had played Wednesday at Anaheim, they found the energy to strike again, on Patrick Sharp’s 55-foot slap shot at 11:32. Brown snuffed any thoughts of a rally by scoring into an empty net with 40.5 seconds to play.

“We had ended the first half with three good efforts and wanted to carry that back and get two points against a good hockey club,” Murray said.

“It wasn’t pretty all the time. The bottom line is we got two points against a real good team, and after eight days off. That was a tough assignment.”

They took it on energetically, getting the puck to the net as often as possible and generally avoiding the tendency to overpass and wait for a perfect shot that might never come.

Their first goal was a product of that strategy, produced after a shot by Kyle Quincey was blocked in front and Brown prodded it past former King Cristobal Huet from close range at 14:47, during a power play. Stoll, set up by Calder’s pass out from behind the net, made it 2-0, 1 minute 45 seconds later.

“I thought our first period was our best period,” said Brown, owner of a career-high four-game goal-scoring streak. “And that’s a positive thing coming off seven, eight days of rest for everyone here and they played [Wednesday] night. We came out hard and I think that obviously jumpstarted the whole game for us.”

O’Sullivan’s short-handed goal was a superb play, begun after Quick made a stick save on Martin Havlat and batted the puck to his right. O’Sullivan dashed up the right side and drew a defender down before snapping a shot inside the far post, past Huet’s stick. Quick was awarded the assist, his first NHL point.

No one’s expecting Quick to get into the scoring act, but a few more performances such as this from the guys who are supposed to score could make the Kings’ final 35 games very interesting and not the slide toward oblivion that they’ve staged the last few seasons.

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helene.elliott@latimes.com