Earning Respect Would Help in Off-Season

Although the Kings’ rebuilding plan didn’t project them in the playoffs until next season, General Manager Dave Taylor had thought they would crack the top eight in the West this season. His faith was rewarded with a 20-point improvement, a fifth-place finish and the team’s first playoff appearance since 1993.

But for all that to mean anything, Taylor and the Kings must approach their accomplishments as the start of a journey, not the mid-point.

As this season nears its end--and the St. Louis Blues are bringing it to a rapid conclusion after their devastating 4-3 victory Monday night--the Kings realize that how they finish is more important than whether they finish it Wednesday or prolong the inevitable to a fifth game.

On Monday morning, about 1,000 tickets remained for that night’s game against the Blues at the Forum, the Kings’ first home playoff contest since the 1993 Stanley Cup finals. The Kings are a tough sell, as they have been for other than the Wayne Gretzky years. The first round of the playoffs is too early for bandwagon jumpers to climb aboard and too early for die-hard fans to lose the skepticism they developed as the Kings slumped in the final month of the season and lost the first two games of this series in St. Louis.

That’s why, for so many reasons, it’s vital for the Kings to end this season respectably.

They must compete well to show their core audience of 8,500 fans this season was no fluke. They must compete well to attract new fans, for infusions of money and enthusiasm. And they must compete well to attract the premier free agents who have been reluctant to come to Los Angeles because of the mismanagement that has plagued the franchise since the days George Maguire routinely traded first-round picks for unmotivated veterans.

“We lost a couple of players we talked to last year because they said they’d have a better opportunity to win with another club,” Taylor said. “Hopefully, after this year, they’ll want to come here.

“I think the season definitely was a step forward. If we lose in four and play well, we can live with that. If we lose in four and play like we did in the first game [an 8-3 loss], no one will be happy. Players have to spend the summer thinking about this and it’s better if you can leave the final game with a good feeling that, yeah, you got beat but it was a good effort and you can live with it. . . . We would like people to be excited about our team.”

There are reasons for optimism, such as the blossoming of 22-year-old goaltender Jamie Storr and the emergence of Jozef Stumpel and Glen Murray as offensive threats.

“But no question, we could use some help,” Taylor said. “I’d like to add a little more team speed and a little more skill.

“We want to move ahead. When we look just in our conference at the Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings and Colorado Avalanche, those are elite teams, and we would like to move in that direction.”

No better time than now to show they’re on that course.

OPEN AND SHUT CASE

To prepare for the playoffs, the Montreal Canadiens moved to a retreat outside the city and closed practices to reporters so they could work on a secret strategy. That brilliant plan can now be revealed: Get to overtime.

The Canadiens’ series-opening victory over Pittsburgh extended their playoff overtime winning streak to 14 games. It began in the third game of their first-round series against Quebec in 1993 and survived an overtime penalty shot by Pittsburgh’s Alexei Morozov on Thursday.

Nine players have sustained the streak: Vincent Damphousse (two goals), Patrice Brisebois, Benoit Brunet, Kirk Muller (three), Guy Carbonneau and John Le Clair (two), and Gilbert Dionne, Eric Desjardins and Stephane Lebeau. Montreal goalies have combined for 185:21 minutes of shutout play.

Coach Alain Vigneault devised a way to defend against Penguin right wing Jaromir Jagr, moving defenseman Zarley Zalapski up front on a checking line so the Canadiens have three defensemen on the ice when Jagr is out. It has worked, for the most part, but Vigneault still must stop left wing Stu Barnes, who has three goals in two games.

IS OSGOOD GOOD ENOUGH?

Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood’s shaky performance in their 3-2 loss at Phoenix on Sunday revived questions about his poise under pressure. Remember, it was Mike Vernon who was in net for Detroit’s Stanley Cup drive last spring.

The Coyotes, meanwhile, are riding the hot hands of Jeremy Roenick and Rick Tocchet, who have eight of the team’s 13 goals. Roenick has two short-handers, a power-play goal and one at even strength.

MIXING METAPHORS

Edmonton General Manager Glen Sather laughed when the Avalanche sent the NHL office tapes of Edmonton players allegedly injuring Colorado players deliberately. But in expressing his disgust, Sather fractured his fairy tales a bit.

“It reminds me of the nursery rhyme when the kid goes up the hill three times,” Sather said. “The wolf eats the little boy the third time. I looked at the Doug Weight tape and I thought, ‘It’s got to be the little boy going up the hill.’ ”

Uh, that would be the little boy who cried wolf and Jack and Jill who went up the hill. Oh, never mind.

BE CAREFUL OUT THERE

The San Jose Sharks and Dallas Stars have suddenly developed a nasty rivalry that has produced some laughs, but is bordering on idiocy.

San Jose defenseman Bryan Marchment became Public Enemy No. 1 in Dallas after knocking Mike Modano and Joe Nieuwendyk out of the Stars’ lineup this season, and checking Nieuwendyk out of the playoffs with a hard, clean hit in Game 1. The next day, a Dallas radio station called Marchment to ask if he feared any of the Stars would retaliate for the hit.

Marchment played along. “Like, who?” he asked.

The interviewer mentioned Bob Bassen, who had pounded Marchment into the boards after the hit on Nieuwendyk.

Said Marchment, “Yeah, that really hurt. That guy weighs like, what, a buck 60?”

The Sharks went goony in Dallas, prompting Dallas Morning News hockey columnist Keith Gave to observe, “The San Jose Sharks are challenging the very integrity of the Stanley Cup tournament with the kind of gutter-style hockey that rivaled the worst performances of the Johnston Chiefs.

“That was the team led by a trio of bespectacled brother-goons, the dreaded Hansens, who brawled their way through the minor league circuit in the cult movie classic ‘Slapshot.’ ”

Not that Shark defenseman Al Iafrate minded that harsh assessment.

“I can’t read,” he said. “I don’t know what [the papers] said.”

However, the Stars were equally undisciplined in losing Game 3 Sunday at San Jose. Goalie Ed Belfour, who was a Shark for a few months last season but bolted as a free agent, pounded Shawn Burr in the face with his blocker and kicked Marcus Ragnarsson. He was ejected and faces a suspension.

Teammate Craig Ludwig said Belfour had snapped, but Belfour disagreed.

“It wasn’t snapping,” he said. “You haven’t seen snapping yet.”

PENALTY PARADE

The NHL’s late-season crackdown on obstruction has carried over into the playoffs.

“We issued a document [to referees] at the start of the playoffs and we’re making every attempt to keep the same standards,” said Bryan Lewis, the NHL’s director of officiating.

That directive, coupled with an unusual amount of rough stuff, has produced a power-play bonanza. Dallas had 29 in three games and San Jose had 25. Edmonton has had 23 in three games against Colorado, which has had 18.

SLAP SHOTS

Paul Coffey has dropped so far off the radar screen that when a neck injury kept defenseman Petr Svoboda out of Game 2 against Buffalo, Coach Roger Neilson bypassed Coffey--a three-time Norris Trophy winner--and played Kjell Samuelsson. Coffey, who played in only two of the Flyers’ final 11 regular-season games, has a year left on his contract, but look for the Flyers to buy him out. . . . The New Jersey Devils, stunned by the Ottawa Senators’ speed and physical play--and too preoccupied with checking Ottawa’s Alexei Yashin to focus on their own offense--have scored only five goals in three games. Coach Jacques Lemaire snubbed reporters after his team’s 2-1 overtime loss Sunday, leaving that task to assistant Robbie Ftorek. No scoring, no class.

Ottawa goalie Damian Rhodes began playing better about the time he bleached his hair. Dennis Rodman must be proud. . . . The Boston Bruins can’t draw--15,520 Sunday--and can’t score. They’ve scored seven goals, three on the power play.

Brian Bellows, who went to Germany when the Mighty Ducks didn’t re-sign him, has a new life with the Washington Capitals. He had six goals in 11 regular-season games and has two points in Washington’s first three playoff games. Bellows, 33, has been on a line with Esa Tikkanen, 33, and center Adam Oates, 35. Lot of mileage on that trio.