Kings Can Live With 1-1 Tie Against Ottawa

The Kings didn’t exactly play their best game of the season Monday night against Ottawa, but they didn’t play too badly either.

That’s why their 1-1 tie with the Senators in front of 15,815 at Staples Center was so fitting, because at this stage of the season, a point is still a point.

Left wing Craig Johnson broke out of a scoring slump with his first goal since Jan. 28 and goaltender Felix Potvin made 24 saves to help the Kings improve to 29-21-9-3 and move within four points of Pacific Division-leading San Jose.

“We’ve talked about how every goal now is almost like two goals because all of the games are going to be so close,” interim Coach Dave Tippett said about the Kings’ stretch run. “With that being said, goals are harder to come by because everyone is playing desperate. You are going to see the best goaltenders every night. It’s going to be tight.”

On Monday, the Kings failed to score first for the fourth consecutive game since the Olympic break. This time, it was Ottawa defenseman Wade Redden who cashed in to give the Senators an early 1-0 lead.

Ottawa center Todd White did not pick up an assist on the play but he played a key role on the Senators’ lone goal. After having a backhand shot stopped by Potvin from the top of the crease, White parked in front of the King goalie and helped enable Redden to score his eighth goal this season, at 13:45 into the first period.

The Kings, who are 12-15-6 in games that they do not score first, didn’t take long to match Ottawa’s score.

With a burst of energy from their No. 2 line of Bryan Smolinski, Steve Heinze and Johnson, the Kings pinned the Senators deep in their zone until Johnson found the net with his 13th goal of the season at 18:53.

It turned out to be the last goal of the night.

“I thought that was a playoff-type hockey game,” said Tippett, who continues to fill in for ailing Coach Andy Murray, who’s recovering from post-concussion syndrome in Faribault, Minn. “I thought that one of our keys for the first two periods was our forecheck. But we got away from that a little bit in the third.”

In the second, the Kings had 11 shots to only two by the Senators, but neither team was able to score. The Kings had a couple of nice chances in the period but they either hit a crossbar or had the puck stopped by Patrick Lalime, who finished with 29 saves.

It was more of the same for both teams in the third, but the Kings found themselves being the team getting outworked for much of the period. Although center Jason Allison and defenseman Aaron Miller each had great scoring opportunities for the Kings, the Senators had the best chances down the stretch of regulation play.

“I think we played a pretty good game [except for] a few lapses,” Miller said. “It was one of those tight, low-scoring games we need to play coming down the stretch.

“We can expect these kinds of games. Teams are really going to start to tighten it up. I know we are going to try and play that kind of style of game. We will win them 6-5 if we have too, but I think we need to play low-scoring games to get ready for the playoffs.”

If not for several solid saves by Potvin in the third period, the Kings would be riding a two-game losing streak heading into a three-game trip that has stops at Dallas, Nashville and Colorado.

“Everybody knows that if we get a couple of wins, we have a chance to move up a couple of spots,” defenseman Philippe Boucher said. “But we also can go down a couple of spots if we lose some games.”

The last time the Kings played Ottawa was Dec. 20 and they won on the road, 4-2, in a game that featured several brutal brawls.

Ottawa racked up 102 penalty minutes in the second period that night, almost doubling the previous franchise high for penalty minutes in a period (57).

But fighting wasn’t an issue on Monday.

“It was a hard-fought game,” Ottawa Coach Jacques Martin said about Monday’s contest, which did not feature any fights. “We didn’t get any shots. They outshot us badly in the second but did not get any chances. It was a real physical game. It seemed to take us awhile to get going.”