February 2011 Archives

Did the anticipation, and the eventual catharsis, of the trade deadline catch up to the players? Was it bad luck? Maybe both?

Those were the questions that needed to be asked, because it just didn't make sense that a team that had not given up more than three goals in a game since Jan. 8 would suddenly, out of nowhere, give up seven. Interesting to note that Terry Murray admitted to having thoughts of pulling Jonathan Quick after the Red Wings' first goal, a bad-angle shot by Drew Miller that tied the game at 1.

Detroit scored the game's next six goals to chase Quick, and the second-guessing began.

Here's the game story, here's the story about the Dustin Penner trade/Justin Williams extension, and here are a few notes that didn't make the paper:

Justin Williams has signed a four-year extension that will keep him in Los Angeles until 2015. According to multiple reports, Williams will earn $3.9 million, $3.9, $3.75 and $3.05 million. That averages out to an annual cap hit of $3.65 million.

Williams has been unusually healthy this season, appearing in all 62 games and ranking second on the Kings in points (49), third in assists (29) and tied for the team lead in goals (20).

"What he's given us doesn't surprise us," general manager Dean Lombardi told reporters at team headquarters earlier today. "This is a good hockey player. ... That 'connect the dots'-type guy, we need that, and that's what he brings."

The Kings reeled in the biggest fish at the NHL trade deadline, acquiring left wing Dustin Penner from the Edmonton Oilers for defenseman Colten Teubert, a first-round 2011 draft pick, and a conditional third-round pick in 2012.

ESPN's Pierre LeBrun wrote on Twitter that the 2012 pick will become a second-round pick if the Kings win the Stanley Cup.

Update: General manager Dean Lombardi told reporters at team headquarters in El Segundo that the trade ultimately came together Monday.

"When we left here late last night, everything was still very much in the air," he said. "In terms of this having me going to bed last night thinking this was done, we were far from it.

"This is (one of) those times when you look at your locker room and say, they deserve some help in strengthening our locker room, making us a better team."

First, the game:

The Kings dominated for 50 minutes before taking a string of penalties that allowed Colorado to score three goals -- on its final three shots -- to make the final score look closer than the game actually was.

"We definitely can't be taking penalties that late in the game," Drew Doughty said. "You see what happens, they almost caught up and took it to OT and that's not something we want to be doing. We've got to learn from it, but [we're] happy with the game."

The Avs were outshot 42-17 en route to losing for the 14th time in their last 16 games.

Anze Kopitar scored for the third time in his last three games, officially ending his drought. Alec Martinez, Doughty and Jarret Stoll all connected on long shots, the latter two coming on the power play.

Jonathan Quick made 14 saves for the victory. He got burned when he mishandled the puck behind the net -- or miscommunicated with his defense, or both -- which led to a Paul Stastny goal in the final minute.

The Kings' 42 shots on goal set a new season high, and the 17 shots against were two off a season low. Considering the Kings spent 13:36 on the power play -- almost a quarter of the game -- it's no surprise.

"We made it interesting at the end just through getting too casual, a little careless with some plays at critical times at the game," head coach Terry Murray said. "You go into the third period with that kind of scenario you want to make sure you're able to lock it down. Good teams do. You don't get reckless or careless and start taking some penalties, especially the high sticking penalties. ... We have to clean that part of it up right away."

Now, about Sturm getting claimed off waivers by Washington and its implications:

The Marco Sturm experiment ended today when the Washington Capitals plucked the veteran winger off waivers from the Kings.

On Thursday, Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau told the Washington Post that third-line winger Eric Fehr would miss up to two weeks; adding Sturm could be in response to that injury. One must figure that the Kings did their homework on such a possibility before letting Sturm go. Now that he's gone, the Kings are down a man entering today's 1 p.m. game against the Colorado Avalanche.

Don't expect Andrei Loktionov to be summoned from Manchester.

Monarchs head coach Mark Morris told the Manchester Union Leader that Loktionov is done for the season after sustaining a shoulder or wrist injury Friday.

No word yet on who Anze Kopitar's left wing will be today.

The Kings placed forward Marco Sturm on waivers this morning. The veteran would only be gone in the unlikely event that a team is willing to pick up his $3.5 million contract for the remainder of the season. There aren't too many contending teams that are willing or able to absorb that money.

But it could happen. The NHL trade deadline is looming at noon Monday. At a time of the season when teams tend to sacrifice prospects or picks for veterans, Sturm and his 238 career goals are available at the cost of zero prospects or picks.

That's essentially what the Kings gave up in December to acquire Sturm from the Boston Bruins. He's scored four goals and nine points in 17 games since, including no goals and an assist in two games since being activated off IR Wednesday. Asked to evaluate Sturm's performance after the Kings' 4-2 win over the Minnesota Wild last night, head coach Terry Murray said "It's coming. ... I'd like to see more from him and I will see more from him."

Maybe that was being a tad optimistic. There isn't much time between now and noon Monday for the Kings to decide whether Sturm is the bona fide No. 1 left wing Anze Kopitar has needed since ... well ... for quite some time. Placing Sturm on waivers signals that the Kings are probably focusing their attention outside the organization, rather than inside, for that help.

Any later in the season, the Kings' win Thursday night would be nothing more or less than a straightforward move up in the Western Conference standings.

That special feat deserves its due. It's not every day that two teams in a dead heat in the standings play each other in a "four-point game." The Kings have done it twice in the span of two days now, and won both times. In the process they've moved up three spots in the standings to fifth.

But my story for tomorrow's editions -- if you got the late edition -- focused on the trade deadline, and the man whose two-goal game raised 26 eyebrows in the Staples Center press box. (We journalists aren't much good at math, but I'm assuming that the credentialed scouts from 13 NHL teams had two eyebrows apiece.)

Wayne Simmonds says he isn't worried about the deadline, meaning he's either a cool customer of the Edmonton Journal or he doesn't read the Edmonton Journal at all. I don't know how many teams were asking about Simmonds prior to his two-goal game against the Wild, so let's call that number x. Dean Lombardi might have 3x teams asking about Simmonds between now and Monday, given that 3x ≤ 29.

Really, I'm not good at math. Corrections welcome.

Perhaps the lesson from Thursday's game is that, with the right linemates, Simmonds can be more than just an energy-line forward, for the Kings or whomever his next employer is. Maybe because of Anze Kopitar's mere presence, Simmonds had plenty of space to fire off both of his goals from a very sweet area of the ice. But he also had the right amount of English on those shots to get them past Kings killer Niklas Backstrom. That wrist shot looked impressive.

Any earlier in the season, and a two-game sequence like Wednesday and Thursday's could inspire "team-of-destiny" talk. The Kings won by scoring three goals on a season-low 18 shots in Anaheim, then got a 160-foot goal by Kopitar to seal the victory against Minnesota. Defense and goaltending being equal (and they usually are around here), those things just don't happen.

But the trade deadline is the one point in the season when fans expect their team to upgrade their personnel. Now is not the time to be looking at destiny to carry a team past the first round of the playoffs, but rather the best available forwards on bad teams with attractive contracts.

So the trade rumors will persist, "destiny" and 160-foot goals be damned. That's why a two-goal game by Wayne Simmonds can't simply come and go without counting the number of scouts credentialed for the game.

A few more notes:

Willie Mitchell picked a good time to score his second goal of the season.

His long slapshot, off a perfect drop pass from Justin Williams, found its way through a screen at 6:45 of the third period and broke a 2-2 tie at Honda Center. The split crowd of 17,174 voiced its mixed emotions, and the Kings clinched their sixth win in the final game of a 10-game road trip.

Anze Kopitar scored his second goal in his last 16 games, Ryan Smyth scored his 20th goal of the season, and the Kings get to come home (even though they've been at home the last three days) to play Minnesota tomorrow night.

Here's the game story and here are a few details I left out:

It would be easy to view Andrei Loktionov's weekend demotion as a statement on the 20-year-old's development - or the lack thereof.

Loktionov was scratched for Saturday's game against the New York Islanders because "there were a couple more games where he's starting to get exposed on system play," Terry Murray said after the Kings practiced Monday. The coach specifically mentioned the shootout loss Thursday against the New York Rangers. "There were three or four different looks that they had that were because of (us) losing some coverage," Murray said.

Come Sunday, Loktionov was playing for the Manchester Monarchs.

Dear readers,

I've accepted an invitation to participate in a live chat, hosted by HockeyPrimeTime.com, during today's Heritage Classic game between Montreal and Calgary (starts at 3 p.m.). I'm extending the invitation to you - and to make it even easier, you can hop in the room right here, without leaving the comforts of insidesocal.com. The game is going to be televised locally on Versus. Come back at 3 and chat it up:

Four days after the first multipoint game of his NHL career, Andrei Loktionov is back in the AHL.

The Kings assigned the 20-year-old center to Manchester on Sunday, and Loktionov was in the starting lineup for the Monarchs' noon (EST) game against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.

In his second NHL stint this season, beginning Jan. 20, Loktionov had two goals, three assists and a plus-3 rating in 12 games. He had a goal, an assist and a plus-2 rating Wednesday in Columbus, and appeared to be on an upswing since head coach Terry Murray switched him from left wing to his natural center position. Yet Loktionov was made a healthy scratch Saturday in the Kings' 3-0 loss to the New York Islanders.

That makes the timing of Loktionov's demotion (not to mention the pretext for juggling lines in the middle of an 8-0-3 streak) less than self-explanatory. Murray told reporters prior to the Islanders game that Loktionov "got exposed a little bit in some of those important situations" - an ambiguous statement, but one that probably alludes to something Murray saw from Loktionov's defensive abilities.

Still, with the trade deadline only eight days away, one must question what the long-term plan is for Loktionov. Is he seen as a part of the core group that will aid the Kings' playoff push? If not, is a trade in the works? If he comes back, is he a center or a left wing?

We'll try to get some answers when the Kings return home to practice this week.

The Kings needed an extra step Saturday to stop the speedy Islanders. At the end of a six-game Eastern trip, that appeared to be too much to ask.

The beneficiary of the Kings' lethargy was Islanders goalie Al Montoya, who recorded a 35-save shutout in his first NHL start since April 9, 2009. The result was the Kings' first regulation loss since Jan. 20, a span of 11 games during which the Kings went 8-0-3. Another win or shootout loss would have established a team record for the most consecutive games with a point.

The Islanders are 22-30-7, a mere six points out of the Eastern Conference basement. But under the circumstances -- playing their second game in as many days and sixth in 10 -- the Kings' loss wasn't as bad as it seemed on the surface. They fired 35 shots toward Montoya, blocked 14 shots and collected 18 hits (four by Dustin Brown = $200 for Children's Hospital Los Angeles).

The Kings also surrendered 13 giveaways, and the Islanders were credited with 12 takeaways, which begins to hint at the extra step the New Yorkers had all night. The shots probably weren't of the quality Terry Murray desired, either, though you couldn't blame the Kings for firing away when throwing everything at the net might have been their only chance for victory.

Nor are the Islanders, 5-1-0 in their last six games, as much of a pushover as they were to start the season. Former King Matt Moulson scored his 22nd and 23rd goals of the season, burying one from a soft spot 48 feet away in the second period, then spinning to his backhand around Matt Greene in the low slot in the third. Frans Nielson scored his league-leading fifth short-handed goal in the first period. Jonathan Quick finished with 20 saves.

With some relevant teams still on the ice (Anaheim, Phoenix, Dallas, Nashville, Vancouver), the Kings find themselves temporarily stuck at 68 points, tied with three other teams (Anaheim, Dallas, Calgary) on the Western Conference playoff bubble. Technically they're ahead of the idle Flames, who have played one more game than the Kings.

If one point didn't seem like enough Thursday night, Kings fans are officially spoiled.

Brandon Dubinsky's wraparound goal with 3:08 left in the third period left the Kings trailing 3-2 at Madison Square Garden -- a tall task to overcome for any team, especially one that wasn't built to score in droves.

But Dustin Brown answered less than a minute later by coralling a Rob Scuderi shot off the end boards, then yanking the puck up and in past Henrik Lundqvist from behind the net.

When overtime began, a double-minor for high-sticking to forward Alexei Ponikarovsky gave the Rangers a 4-on-3 power play for the first four minutes. The Kings weathered that storm, too, and forced a shootout in a 3-3 game for the second straight night.

In the end, they were denied the extra point because starting goaltender Jonathan Bernier is not Jonathan Quick in the skills competition -- at least not this season.

Jarret Stoll's shootout goal lifted the Kings to another close win on a road trip that is slowly, surely turning their season around.

Since hitting their low point Jan. 20 at 24-22-1, the Kings have gone 8-0-2 - including 5-0-2 to start their 10-game "road trip."

Stoll slipped a forehand past the blocker of Mathieu Garon and Jonathan Quick made 26 saves, plus three more in the shootout, to preserve the win. Justin Williams scored his team-leading 20th goal of the season, Andrei Loktionov scored his fourth and Drew Doughty scored his eighth. The Kings (32-22-3) never trailed but never pulled away, allowing the Blue Jackets (28-23-6) to answer each of their goals.

"A conference game and both teams are trying to push themselves into the playoffs," Kings head coach Terry Murray said. "I liked our first period. I thought that was a good start. Then we started to get away from doing the right things in the second period. We were a little too fancy and a little too cute at times. We lost our responsibility in the checking part of the game. It was back and forth and we are going to need to be more focused as we move through the rest of this trip."

A few more notes:

The Kings today announced a distinguished lineup of alumni (subject to change) for their Fantasy Camp, to be held March 4-6, 2011 at the Toyota Sports Center in El Segundo: Marty McSorley, Luc Robitaille, Marcel Dionne, Glen Murray, Jim Fox, Daryl Evans, Rob Blake, Ian Turnbull and Bernie Nicholls.

A few spots remain open (cost is $1299). More information is available at http://www.lakings.com/fantasycamp.

If you're a Kings season-ticket holder, you probably received an e-mail today that began like this:

Dear (You),

On behalf of the entire LA Kings organization, we would like to welcome you to your personal Season Ticket Member Locker Room. You are an important member of our team and the personal website we have created for you should answer many of the questions you have about your 2011 Stanley Cup Playoff and 2011-12 Season Ticket Renewal including your benefits, pricing, payment options as well as answers to many frequently asked questions.

Your official invoices and renewal packet will be delivered beginning February 18th.

Another link followed asking if you or anyone you know would make a good left wing for Anze Kopitar.

Kidding on the last one.

Do enough clicking, and enough math, and you'll find that ticket prices are increasing by an average of $3.80 if you renew by March 21 and $6.87 afterward (or if you become a first-time buyer after that date).

You might recall that around two years ago at this time, season-ticket prices were frozen from the 2008-09 season in response to the recession. Last season saw the average cost of a season ticket increase by $2.78, according to the independent Team Marketing Report.

Is this asking an arm and a leg, or a reasonable price for a couple years' worth of success?

Anze Kopitar spotted a streaking Drew Doughty 17 seconds into the second period for the only goal of the game, and Jonathan Quick's 40-save shutout gave the Kings their seventh win in their last nine games (7-0-2).

Credit Wayne Simmonds for starting the scoring sequence by winning a puck battle behind the net with Flyers defenseman Kimmo Timonen. Simmonds fished the puck out to Kopitar in the corner, before Kopitar hit the tape of Doughty's stick as he skated high to low through the right faceoff circle.

The game delivered on the promise of a plot between a Kings team whose GM, head coach and assistant coach were lifted straight from the Flyers organization. It wasn't a contrast in styles, but a battle of which team could execute the same system better. On Sunday, it was the Kings by a nose.

Former Flyer Michal Handzus also played a pivotal role during a 20-second-long 5-on-3 penalty kill in the second period. Handzus won the initial offensive-zone faceoff, allowing the Kings to clear the puck once, then ventured high into the offensive zone to clear the puck out again and kill the penalty.

The Flyers could not convert any of their four power plays, mustering two shots over a combined 7:40.

That helped Quick collect his sixth shutout of the season, outdueling Sergei Bobrovsky, who had an excellent 24-save performance of his own.

A few more notes ...

Alex Ovechkin - who else - scored on the Capitals' first shot of the game. That was the extent of the damage, and after a sluggish first period, it was all Kings.

Rather than squeak out a victory by the skin of their teeth, the Kings scored four unanswered goals and denied the same quality chances on the other end. Anze Kopitar tied the game at 1 in the second period by scoring his first goal since Jan. 15, putting back the rebound of a Wayne Simmonds shot from close range.

Andrei Loktionov put back a rebound at the end of a 2-on-1 rush with Kyle Clifford at 3:36 of the third period to give the Kings a 2-1 lead. Michal Handzus whacked in another loose puck in Semyon Varlamov's crease at 12:28 of the third, and Jarret Stoll flew up the right wing for a much prettier goal at 13:56.

Jonathan Bernier made 22 saves, buckling down after Ovechkin's goal 66 seconds into the game.

Going back to Dec. 27, when the Kings first slipped into a 2-10 coma, they had only beaten one opponent by three or more goals (a 5-2 win over Edmonton on Jan. 15). Since Jan. 22, they're 6-0-2 and now have a decisive win over a good team that was booed heartily by the announced crowd of 18,398 at the Verizon Center.

A few more notes:

Jordan Staal's forehand wrister with 18.4 seconds left in overtime sent the Kings to a 2-1 loss against a depleted Penguins squad.

After Los Angeles native Brett Sterling got the Pens on the board early, Jarret Stoll capitalized on a Penguins turnover to tie the game at 1 at 17:17 of the first period. Nobody scored again in a tight defensive battle until Staal's game-winner. Jonathan Quick made 24 saves, and counterpart Marc-Andre Fleury had 32 for the Penguins.

When Quick and Fleury weren't trading saves - mostly of the routine variety - they got help from their defense. The Kings (18) and Penguins (21) combined for 39 blocked shots, including seven alone by Pittsburgh defenseman Zbynek Michalek. It was the type of game Pittsburgh needed without injured forwards Sidney Crosby (concussion), Evgeni Malkin (knee) and Chris Kunitz (lower body).

It was the type of game the Kings needed, too, given the depth of their recent offensive struggles. In the end, it could have gone either way. This time it went the Penguins' way.

Optimistically, the Kings added to their point total for the seventh straight game. Pessimistically, even the latest forward permutations couldn't find the second goal it needed to beat a weakened offensive team.

A few more notes:

With the Kings and Penguins readying for the puck drop in Pittsburgh, a small note to pass along on Trevor Gretzky ...

Wayne's baseball-playing son, a first baseman for Oaks Christian High School in Westlake Village, will play Saturday in the fifth annual Southern California Invitational Showcase at Compton College. The event, held by the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau at the MLB Urban Youth Academy, will also feature Palm Desert High School third baseman/right fielder Ryan Garvey (son of Steve).

Several recent first-round draft picks have attended the event in its first five years. Trevor Gretzky, a senior, hit .341 with two home runs and 33 RBI as a junior for Oaks Christian.

That collective sigh coming from El Segundo tomorrow morning will signal the end of the Kings' brief layover in Southern California. After spending three full days at home, the last two of which included morning practices, it's off to Pittsburgh and arguably the Kings' toughest road trip of the season.

The six-games-in-10-days stretch includes games against four of the top seven teams in the Eastern Conference (plus the Islanders and the Blue Jackets).

The most famous Japanese hockey player in Kings history - more accurately, the only Japanese hockey player in NHL history - was in the news again today.

Yutaka Fukufuji made 47 saves but took the loss as host nation Kazakhstan defeated Japan 4-1 in the gold-medal game at the Asian Winter Games. Fukufuji, who appeared in four games for the Kings in 2006-07, was named Best Goalkeeper of the tournament by the Tournament Directorate. The 28-year-old left North America two years ago and currently plays in the Asian League, according to Wikipedia.

A few notes from the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings' AHL affiliate:

• Scoring his third goal in as many games Friday evening, defenseman Viatcheslav Voynov (12-25=37) holds sole possession of first place on the Monarchs with 37 points.
Voynov also leads American Hockey League defenseman with 37 points on the season and is tied for the lead among AHL blueliners with six power-play goals to his credit.

• LW Bud Holloway recorded an assist as well as his team-leading 16th goal of the season in Saturday's 4-0 blanking of the Albany Devils. He has 36 points (16-20=36) in 51 games to place second on the Monarchs in points. Holloway also assisted on the game-winning goal and added a power play goal of his own as insurance in Saturday's contest against Albany.

• Martin Jones stopped all 26 shots he faced to pick up his third shutout of the season against Albany. Jeff Zatkoff missed the game with an undisclosed illness. A night earlier, Jones absorbed a 4-3 shootout loss against the Worcester Sharks.

• The Monarchs (31-16-1-4) have a tenuous two-point lead on Portland (30-15-4-1) in the Atlantic Division; Portland has two games in hand. Things could change in a hurry this week: Manchester plays four games in five days, all at home, beginning Wednesday.

Justin Williams' seventh-round shootout goal capped a big day for the veteran winger and gave the Kings two points at the end of a long night in Calgary.

Williams picked up the primary assist on Rob Scuderi's goal 39 seconds into the game, and on Dustin Brown's goal at 6:17 of the first period after a Robyn Regehr goal had tied the game at 1. At 11:02 of the second period Williams scored to restore the lead again, at 3-2, before Alex Tanguay's second goal of the game brought Calgary back at 3-3 in the third period.

Jonathan Quick made 32 saves through 65 minutes. In the shootout, he allowed a pair of quick goals to Rene Bourque and Alex Tanguay, then was credited with five straight saves (with help from a pair of goal posts).

The net result was the Kings' fifth win in their last six games, a stretch in which they have gained 11 of a possible 12 points. They have hardly been dominant - two of the wins came via the shootout, and the other three came by 1- or 2-goal margins. The Kings were outshot again in Calgary (35-33) and have only outshot two of six opponents during the streak.

But aside from the obvious benefit of gaining points in the Western Conference standings (and oh, by the way, the Kings leapfrogged the Flames into the top eight tonight), the six-game point streak has served an important purpose. It's removed the sense of urgency to acquire someone from the outside to pump some life into the offense. Not that the offense is firing on all cylinders, but each win makes the Feb. 28 trade deadline seem like a realistic time frame in which to forge a solution.

A few more notes:

Drew Cleszynski over at StadiumReview.com (which does a pretty comprehensive job reviewing major and minor-league stadiums across North America) tackled a hockey-ready Staples Center this week. You can read the review here: http://stadiumjourney.com/stadiums/staples-center-s58/

Before I insert my thoughts, a disclaimer: I have been to Staples Center once as a fan (and for some reason, eight years later, I don't remember the Sean Avery-Jarome Iginla fight).

That said, a lot of what was written came as news to me. Some things weren't - and the fact that the laser show is green suddenly seems strange now. But covering up the retired Lakers jerseys during Kings games? Really?

Anyway, go check it out.

While the rest of his teammates did nothing to pad their stats, Drew Doughty was busy stealing goals from Ryan Smyth on Thursday.

Doughty was credited with his fifth and sixth goals of the season Thursday, and Ryan Smyth had his 20th and 21st goals of the season taken away, after the NHL decided that Smyth did not, in fact, deflect Doughty's shots into the Edmonton Oilers' net Wednesday.

Michal Handzus and Anze Kopitar are now getting the secondary assists on Doughty's goals. Smyth goes from a two-goal night to a zero-point night. He is now mired in a two-game point drought.

J.P. Barry, the agent for goaltender Ray Emery, said that "three or four" teams are kicking the tires on his client, who is attempting a comeback from major hip surgery that ended his 2009-10 season. The Kings are not one of those teams.

Asked in a text message this morning if the Kings had any interest in Emery, general manager Dean Lombardi replied with a simple "no."

Although the 28-year-old Emery would seem like a bit of a risk, and the Kings have both of their young goalies under contract through 2012-13, it's a worthwhile question. When Erik Ersberg bolted for the KHL in October, the Kings were left with no other goalies in the system with prior NHL experience. That's a trait that NHL teams covet in their "third goalie"; assistant GM Ron Hextall said as much in an October interview. If Jonathan Quick or Jonathan Bernier went down with an injury, the most logical replacement within the organization would be Martin Jones, who turned 21 last month. Jones is having a fine season (17-5-1, 2.17 GAA, .930 save %) with Manchester and recently appeared in the AHL All-Star Game. Perhaps he's inspired enough confidence this season to earn that emergency call-up without a second guess.

The Ducks (who are in the same position goalie-wise as the Kings) are known to be interested in Emery.

The Kings found a way to get a win, and a point in a fourth straight game, against an Edmonton Oilers team that left no excuse for a letdown.

Ryan Smyth was credited with two goals after replays showed enough evidence that his wooden stick got a piece of two deep Drew Doughty blasts. Jack Johnson had the other goal, and Jonathan Quick turned in an acrobatic (if not technically perfect) 32-save effort.

Whether this was a notable turning point for the offensively challenged Kings, or merely a solid road win against a bad team, will be revealed over the course of the nine straight road games that await.

For now, it's worth noting that the Kings had to come from behind after a Magnus Paajarvi goal gave the Oilers (15-27-8) a 1-0 lead at 3:21 of the second period. They did so on the strength of a previously weak power play.

Smyth answered with his first goal 24 seconds later - five seconds into a power play - and scored again on the Kings' next power play at 9:47, sliding across Nikolai Khabibulin's field of vision as Doughty released a shot.

The Kings finished 2-for-4 on the power play after going 1-for-28 with the man advantage in their previous 10 games. Doughty finished with two primary assists and Johnson had two secondary assists, along with his deep blast past Khabibulin at 14:52 of the third period.

Edmonton went without a power-play goal in five chances against the Kings, falling to 3-for-26 on the man advantage in its last six games. Before that, the Oilers did not score a power-play goal in 11 games. It was the type of game the Kings were hoping for, if not expecting.

A few more notes:

Pierre-Marc Bouchard's second-round shootout goal against Jonathan Bernier was the only puck that crossed the goal line in 65-plus minutes of hockey in St. Paul.

Bouchard's backhand, five-hole beauty came immediately after Wild goaltender Niklas Backstrom kicked up his leg -- from his belly -- to stop Jack Johnson's shot on the other end. Backstrom stopped Dustin Brown in the third round to seal the win and send the Kings (27-22-2) to their first shootout loss all season.

Bernier was hardly to blame. He got some help from a goal frame en route to a 25-save performance, but made some timely saves and was able to swallow up the big rebounds when he needed to.

That was the encouraging part, along with another typical stingy defensive performance by the Kings, who have a point in four straight games. The Kings will play four back-to-back games this month (beginning tomorrow night in Edmonton), which means Bernier figures to be called upon often.

The NHL's marketing department chooses Three Stars for the entire league, every week. It amounts to a metaphorical pat on the back for the players, whose performances typically have meaningful implications for their respective teams.

Because of the all-star break, last week consisted of three days' worth of actual games, 23 games total. A small sample size didn't stop the NHL from handing out three stars, however, and Jonathan Quick is number two. From the league's press release:

Quick registered a pair of victories heading into the All-Star break, helping the Kings (27-22-1) gain valuable points and momentum in the tight race for playoff berths in the Western Conference. Quick began the week by making 34 saves in a 2-0 victory over the Boston Bruins Jan. 24, collecting his career-high fifth shutout of the season. He then turned aside 22 of 24 shots through overtime and stopped all four shootout attempts as the Kings defeated the San Jose Sharks 3-2 Jan. 26. Quick improved to 5-0 in shootouts this season, stopping 87% of attempts. The 25-year-old Milford, Conn. native ranks third among NHL goaltenders in goals-against average (2.15) and tied for third in shutouts (five).