Youngster More Than a Stopgap Measure

ST. LOUIS —  The Kings lost a game but found a goaltender Saturday.

With an impressive performance in their 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues at Kiel Center, Jamie Storr made himself the goaltender of the moment, not the goaltender of the future. Because the Kings’ future is now, in the few games that are left to them after falling behind a clearly superior team, 2-0, in their best-of-seven playoff series.

Lose honorably, and the Kings can truthfully say they made considerable gains this season and were simply defeated by a better and deeper team. Lose honorably, and they will be respected and maybe admired, making them an attractive option for the free agents they must sign this summer to flesh out the outlines of a solid team.

Storr, cooler than the slushy ice beneath him on a humid St. Louis evening, gave the Kings a better chance to win Saturday than Stephane Fiset did in allowing the first five goals in an 8-3 series-opening loss. Certainly, his teammates gave Storr a better chance Saturday by playing a tighter defensive game and displaying the persistence and brawn that were their most effective weapons all season.

“It wasn’t eight goals, so I think we did a lot better,” Storr said, not intending to be funny.

“You can’t compare the two performances because of the way we played,” defenseman Sean O’Donnell said. “We have a luxury a lot of teams don’t have--two good goaltenders.”

But in the final analysis, it was Storr who stood tallest, Storr who--in his second NHL playoff game and first playoff start--nearly equaled the performance of five-time Stanley Cup winner Grant Fuhr at the other end of the ice.

Fuhr, who made 26 saves, “played great,” St. Louis defenseman Steve Duchesne said. “He’s 35 and he looked like he’s 22.”

Which was only appropriate because Storr, 22, played with the savvy and coolness of a 35-year-old.

“He played really well,” Duchesne agreed. “We knew he was going to be ready for the game and he did very well for them. This game could have turned out either way.”

Storr was as good as he had to be in the first period, when the slow-starting Blues mustered only five shots. He was superb in the third period, when the Blues picked up the pace and threw 12 shots at him. Storr’s calmness has become a team joke--O’Donnell said Storr is so sedate, “sometimes we think he didn’t get enough sleep,”--and Storr again displayed that poise under the most intense pressure he had faced in his budding career.

“I was a little nervous at the pregame nap,” said Storr, who was 6-3-1 with a 1.98 goals-against average in his final 10 starts before the playoffs. “I was pretty excited to get to the rink. . . . My dad was watching back home [in Toronto], my wife was watching in L.A., and my brother was watching it in Ottawa.”

If that’s not enough pressure, try facing the cannon-like shots of Al MacInnis and Brett Hull. Not to mention the quick shots the Blues generated off their outstanding transition game.

Yet, Storr made 25 saves, giving up only a goal to Chris Pronger on a clever setup from Craig Conroy while the teams were four-on-four, and Jim Campbell’s decisive power-play goal. Even then, it took exceptional efforts by the Blues to keep the puck in the Kings’ zone and a deft move for Pierre Turgeon to tap the puck over to Campbell in the slot. Storr managed to get a piece of Campbell’s backhander, agonizing as it slid between his legs and glanced off his stick before sliding behind him.

“When you make them make a nice play, they deserve to get it,” he said. “It’s a big game and I’m disappointed I could make that save. It’s part of the game, I guess.”

It would make for a nice story if Fuhr had been one of Storr’s childhood idols, but Storr said he admired Curtis Joseph and Patrick Roy. “Grant Fuhr was always one of the best, someone I looked up to,” Storr said. “Now, playing against him, I want to outplay him. Tonight, he outplayed me.”

If Fuhr outplayed Storr, it wasn’t by much. “He played very well,” said Fuhr, who has appeared in 129 playoff games--third all-time and 127 more than Storr. “He’s a good kid. He’s got a lot of confidence.”

Said King Coach Larry Robinson: “Jamie played great. He made some huge stops. He was pretty steady in there, which is unusual for a young kid like that. . . . I think we’ll go with Jamie [Monday in Game 3]. He played very well. He deserves the chance.”

Storr gives the Kings their best chance to win, and if not that, to compete respectably. That might have to be enough for now, but that’s still a lot more than they had at the end of last season.

“We battled really hard. Every player on our team was accounted for, and if we play like this we’re going to be successful,” Storr said.

Perhaps not successful in this series, but successful in the long run. With Storr in net, that doesn’t seem so far off for the Kings anymore.