Kings, Storr Swept Away

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- After Tyler Wright of the Columbus Blue Jackets completed a hat trick by scoring his third goal Sunday night, bringing a rain of caps onto the ice at Nationwide Arena, King goaltender Jamie Storr helped with the cleanup.

It was less a gesture of good sportsmanship in the final seconds of a 5-1 loss than a matter of wanting to flee the scene as quickly as possible.

“It was nagging at me,” said Storr after the Blue Jackets torched him for three third-period goals, the last two by Wright, in front of 17,106. “It’s just like when you’re down and someone kicks you ... and then steps on you.

“That’s kind of what it felt like.”

Storr, making only his second start this season in relief of Felix Potvin, hadn’t known that feeling in quite some time.

He hadn’t lost a start since Nov. 29, when he dropped a 3-1 decision against the Edmonton Oilers, and had been unbeaten in his last nine decisions on the road, posting a 7-0-2 record since losing at Tampa Bay, 3-0, on Oct. 25, 2001.

But the Blue Jackets, who had squandered a 3-1 third-period lead in a 5-4 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Friday night, took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Geoff Sanderson only 1 minute 46 seconds into the game and never let up.

Sanderson, one of five players remaining from the expansion club that made its debut two seasons ago, said later that this was perhaps the Blue Jackets’ best game, helping to ease the sting of consecutive 7-1 October losses to the Kings.

The Kings, who played for the fifth time in six games without injured right wing Ziggy Palffy, were in no position to argue.

“We knew what we faced here with Columbus,” Coach Andy Murray said. “I had the opportunity to watch them practice yesterday -- they’d had a tough loss the night before -- and they came to work. Their game was a carryover from their practice. Their level of determination was real high.

“We also had a great practice yesterday, but somewhere between then and the start of the hockey game, we lost our level of determination.”

Still, the Blue Jackets’ lead was only 2-1 after Adam Deadmarsh scored his fourth goal in two games for the Kings with 11:59 to play.

The Blue Jackets had coughed up two-goal leads in each of their previous two games, losing one and tying the other, so the Kings were far from finished.

Only 77 seconds later, however, Hannes Hyvonen scored on a rebound to increase their deficit to 3-1. The winger poked the puck into the net after a shot by Andrew Cassels slipped between Storr’s legs and caromed off the right post. It landed behind Storr, who had lost track of it, and Hyvonen pounced on it.

With 4:46 to play, Wright scored a short-handed goal, the first given up by the Kings, when he rifled a shot from the right faceoff circle that sailed under Storr’s right arm. He completed the hat trick with a power-play goal, scoring on a redirection of a shot by Rostislav Klesla with 29 seconds remaining.

Including a second-period goal scored at even strength, the hat trick was Wright’s second overall and first since March 16, 2001, at Atlanta, when he also scored a power-play goal, short-handed goal and even-strength goal.

Storr and the Kings were left to clean up and clear out.

“My job is to stop the puck out there,” Storr said. “Tonight, five goals went in, so there’s a lot of stuff that I can work on.

“What my teammates do out there, that’s part of their own preparation. I don’t have any say in whether we were ready or we weren’t ready. Each person has to be accountable to himself. It’s on each individual guy.”