Bad Case of the Blues

ST. LOUIS —  At least the Kings did not set a record for worst playoff loss in franchise history.

Other than that, there wasn’t anything positive about the Kings’ first postseason appearance in five years. Geoff Courtnall scored a goal and added a franchise-record-tying five assists as the St. Louis Blues streaked to an easy 8-3 victory Thursday night in front of 20,120 at the Kiel Center.

In falling behind 1-0 in their best-of-seven series, the Kings did not lose by 10 goals as they did when Edmonton defeated them, 13-3, in 1987. But they did fail to do any of the things they said they had to do to slow the high-scoring Blues, who remain unbeaten in five games against the Kings this season.

“It wasn’t from a lack of effort,” King Coach Larry Robinson said. “A lot of our key players had what you would call a great game. I don’t think Blakey [Rob Blake], Stump [Jozef Stumpel] or Luc [Robitaille] played at the top of their game.

“It’s tough when all of your best players do not play [their best games]. We’re not loaded enough with talent that if our best don’t play at their top. . . . They didn’t play bad, but they didn’t play good enough. We also didn’t get any big stops, and that in itself was why it was 8-3.”

The Kings wanted to get off to a good start defensively. Instead, they gave up a goal on St. Louis’ first shot when Pavol Demitra scored 1:42 into the game.

The Kings wanted to play strong in their own zone in support of goaltender Stephane Fiset, who had struggled over the last month of the season. Instead, they were out of position throughout and Fiset was replaced by Jamie Storr after he gave up five goals on 27 shots in less than 34 minutes.

The Kings didn’t want to take too many penalties. Instead, they were called for 18 and the Blues made them pay by scoring three goals in 11 power-play situations.

The Kings said they had to shut down St. Louis’ top scoring forwards in Courtnall, Brett Hull, Pierre Turgeon, Jim Campbell and Demitra. Instead, they allowed them to combine for all eight goals with Demitra, Campbell and Turgeon each scoring twice.

The Kings wanted to shoot the puck more. Instead, were outshot by the Blues, 40-27, including 27-15 over the final two periods.

“They had all the room they wanted,” King defenseman Blake said. “They came at us, three-on-twos, two-on-ones. They outnumbered us through the neutral zone all game. Their breakout was one pass to a [defenseman] and wide across, and then the next thing we knew they all were coming. It shouldn’t happen like that. That’s not the way we want to play them. It was no surprise. We knew what they were going to do, we were prepared for it but the guys . . . didn’t execute the way we should have.”

When the Kings lost, 7-3, to St. Louis in Los Angeles last week in their next-to-last game of the regular season, it was clear they could not afford to give the Blues much space to unleash their scoring attack.

But that’s exactly what they did Thursday night. St. Louis took a 1-0 lead when Courtnall avoided defenseman Jan Vopat in the Kings’ zone and passed to an open Demitra, who scored from the left circle.

St. Louis went ahead 2-0 when Courtnall scored a power-play goal at 4:42. The Kings seemed to settle down when, 18 seconds after Courtnall’s score, Craig Johnson beat St. Louis goaltender Grant Fuhr for a goal to cut the deficit to 2-1.

But in the second period, the Kings simply fell apart when St. Louis scored four goals to tie a team playoff record for goals in a period.

Turgeon put the Blues ahead, 3-1, at 5:46 when he scored a power-play goal on a Courtnall assist. At 9:17, St. Louis took a 4-1 lead when Campbell slapped a shot from the right circle that slid between Fiset’s legs.

Campbell got his second goal at 13:41, on another assist from Courtnall, when he scored an easy goal from outside the left post. It was after this juncture that Robinson benched Fiset; however, Storr did not fare much better. At 15:12, Turgeon scored on a wraparound to give St. Louis a 6-1 lead.

In the third period, the Kings sank deeper into the mire when the Blues scored two goals in the first 1:08. Hull scored 16 seconds into the period mark and Demitra gave St. Louis an 8-1 lead with a rebound goal less than a minute later.

The Kings got the final words with goals by Glen Murray at 3:19 and Luc Robitaille at 7:05, but they were not spoken with much conviction.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

GAME 1 BY THE NUMBERS

1:42: Amount of time it took for the Blues to score

0: Number of power-play goals for the Kings in 8 opportunities

3: Number of power-play goals for the Blues in 11 opportunities

40: Number of shots on goal for the blues

27: Number of shots on goal for the Kings

6: Number of points for st. Louis’ geoff courtnall. also the number of years since a player has had six points in a playoff game. (Mario Lemieux, april 23, 1992).

4-14: Kings’ record in playoff series in which they lose first game.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

(Best of seven)

* Game 1: St. Louis 8, Kings 3

* Saturday: at St. Louis, 4:30

* Monday: at Kings, 7:30

* Wednesday: at Kings, 7:30

* May 1: at St. Louis, 4:30-x

* May 3: at Kings, noon-x

* May 5: at St. Louis, 4:30-x

x-if necessary; all times Pacific