Kings Visit Strange Territory

So this is what a lead looks like.

And a victory.

The Kings got a chance to kick a team when it was down Wednesday night, getting first-period goals from Luc Robitaille and Glen Murray in a 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals.

The injury-decimated Capitals came to town seven forwards shy of a load and left with their seventh loss in the last nine games, along with a hearty “thank you” from the Kings, who ended a losing streak at four games before an announced 9,816 that looked remarkably like 6,000 at the Great Western Forum.

The Kings gathered around goalie Stephane Fiset, celebrating as if they had won the Stanley Cup.

It wasn’t the Stanley Cup, but it was their second victory in their last 12 games.

The Kings have a one-game winning streak in a season in which they haven’t won two in a row and climbed over San Jose and Tampa Bay to become the 25th-place team in the 27-team NHL.

“We had talked about it,” Coach Larry Robinson said. “We wanted to get something in the first period. When you’ve got a team like this, with both teams having trouble scoring goals, you want to score early and get them back on their heels.”

The Kings won the first period, something they hadn’t done since Nov. 21 when they enjoyed a 1-0 lead over Chicago after 20 minutes.

Actually, they hadn’t scored a first-period goal since then, nor had they had a lead of any kind until Wednesday, when Robitaille took a cross-ice pass from Doug Bodger and banged in his 13th goal of the season and 491st of his career.

It came after Yanic Perreault had won a faceoff in the Washington zone and gotten the puck to Glen Murray, who also had an assist on the play.

“That was the key,” said Robitaille, who was grousing that the win wasn’t 3-1. “The last two games, we’ve played well. . . . I think if we could get a quick lead. . . . That goal was key.”

Said Robinson earlier in the day: “You can’t get a second before you get a first. I don’t think we can look at it as trying to win a game. Let’s win a period. Let’s win a shift.”

Flush with success, the Kings added to their largess with Murray’s goal at 14:05. Robitaille returned the favor on the play, which was the result of a four-on-one break, the largest advantage the Kings have enjoyed on a rush all season.

It went from Robitaille to Perreault to Robitaille to Murray to the net in a coaching-clinic display of moving the puck.

It was the Kings’ high-water mark, generating a lead they worked hard to protect the rest of the game.

Fiset was the beneficiary of this offensive surge, and he responded by turning back 32 Washington shots. The Kings were outshot, 33-22.

The lead was cut to 2-1 at 3:54 of the third period when Steve Konowalchuk took a pass from Andrei Nikolishin, who was behind the goal. Bodger stretched to handle the defensive chores, but sprawled in the crease and the pass eluded him.

With the King confidence as fragile as crystal, the tendency was to look for trouble. In the previous 26 games, it hadn’t been hard to find. In the third period, they got some trouble when Steve McKenna, just off the injured list, injured a groin muscle. He will be evaluated today.

And how long could a one-goal lead last, particularly with a team not used to protecting one?

In this case, 16:06, though Washington, motivated by its third-period score, put on enough pressure to keep it from being easy.

“You could see a team with confidence not high,” Robinson said. “Every time they had a play, we had four guys backing up. We did not have the confidence to forecheck.

“We are more concerned about not getting caught.”

Fiset was called upon to handle the heavy lifting with three minutes to play when the Capitals’ Kelly Miller had the puck directly in front of the crease and backhanded a shot into the goalie’s glove.

In the end, though, Fiset finished off his fourth win, and the first win in a long, long time for the Kings, who built on a successful period and made it last.

“It’s a win,” Robinson said. “They’ve been few and far between for us. It’s a step in the right direction.”

In this case, a step up over Tampa Bay.

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Ducks 4, Vancouver 4

The Mighty Ducks answered some questions against the Canucks, but raised at least one new one. Page 3