King Penalty Killers Step Forward

It didn’t take long to see that the Kings were not going to take any nonsense from the Detroit Red Wings and their fans Thursday night at Staples Center.

With the Kings desperately in need of a victory after going winless over their last five games, they were the aggressors all night in a 3-0 victory.

Defenseman Aaron Miller, center Jason Allison and winger Kelly Buchberger will get much of the credit for providing the scoring, and goaltender Felix Potvin will earn his praise for recording his 24th career shutout, but the Kings’ true heroes were their penalty killers.

After giving up 10 power-play goals during their winless span, the Kings did not come close to giving up one against the Red Wings. That was important considering that the Kings’ penalty-killing unit had led the NHL for most of the season, but entered Thursday’s game eighth because of its recent stretch.

“It seems that everyone wants to talk about your penalty kill when it’s struggling,” Miller said about the Kings, who were two for two playing a man short against Detroit. “We were first in the league for nearly 70 games. It doesn’t always go the way you want for a lot of different reasons but we worked on it and addressed it and it was better tonight.”

The key to their penalty-killing unit’s success on Thursday was that the Kings, themselves, stayed out of the penalty box. That’s something they didn’t do too well the last five games when they averaged six penalties a game.

“We had just a couple of power plays in the first period and that’s all we had,” Detroit forward Igor Larionov said. “After the first, we went 50 minutes without one, and sometimes it’s tough to get goals like that.”

The Kings certainly didn’t start the game with too much discipline.

Over the first 10 minutes, the Red Wings found themselves with a man-advantage twice, thanks to a Jaroslav Modry high-sticking penalty and a hooking call on Adam Deadmarsh.

But the King penalty killers were ready for the challenge.

Center Eric Belanger got things going when he won the first faceoff against Detroit’s Tomas Holmstrom and the Kings kept things simple enough to frustrate the Red Wing power play.

For Detroit’s first power play, the Kings limited the Red Wings to only one shot. They did not make any questionable passes and were in position to back up one another when needed.

“We [knew] that we were really that close to getting back where we were a couple of weeks ago,” winger Ian Laperriere said. “It’s just little things that we were not doing right.

“We’ve been thinking that we’ve been working hard but we haven’t been. It’s like we think it’s going to come back easy because we were so successful for much of the season. But when things don’t go well, you have to remember to go back to the basics and keep it simple.”

On the Red Wings’ second power play, the Kings ended up having the best scoring chance over the two-minute span. Again, it was Belanger in the middle of the action.

After picking up a loose puck in the neutral zone, Belanger skated up ice while fighting off Detroit’s Darren McCarty and barely missed scoring against goaltender Dominik Hasek.

“I thought I had him but I couldn’t lift the puck over him,” said Belanger, playing in his second game after missing nearly two months because of a wrist injury.

“We’re happy with the way we played. We know that we’re good, but teams go through slumps during the year. Good teams find a way to bounce back and our penalty killers did so tonight.”

It’s not as if the Kings had lost confidence because of their recent shaky play, but their effort had definitely become a concern.

“There’s never been a sense of panic in the dressing room,” defenseman Mathieu Schneider said. “I think fatigue played a part [with five games in nine days].”

Whereas the Red Wings have enough talent and skill to win games when they don’t give a total effort, the Kings don’t have that luxury.

“I think if we cruise at all, we’re usually down three or four goals,” King Coach Andy Murray said before the game.

“The bottom line for us is that we’ve given up 19 goals over a five-game span [before Thursday]. That’s almost an average of four a game and you can’t do that in this league.

“And, we’ve given up most of them on the power play, 10 of the 19. Our defensive play and penalty killing definitely has to be better.”

On Thursday, it was again.