Kings Get in Way of Shark Attack

SAN JOSE —  The Kings could easily blame their 2-1 loss to San Jose on Monday on their lack of incentive compared to that of the Sharks, who are still fighting for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.

While the Kings appear safely in with the fifth-best record in the conference, Coach Larry Robinson refused to say that the team’s loss before 17,013 at the San Jose Arena was because it didn’t have anything to play for.

“The first couple of periods, they just were a little bit hungrier than we were on the puck,” said Robinson, whose team has lost 2-1 games to Carolina, Toronto and San Jose in 11 days.

“[San Jose] played well. . . . [But] every team is going to be desperate from now to the end of the year. [The Kings] will just be kidding themselves if they don’t know that all of these games are important. Another thing is that we play [San Jose] three times over the next [10 days].”

The Sharks used two second-period goals and 21 saves by Mike Vernon to defeat the Kings for the first time in three meetings. Former King Tony Granato scored San Jose’s first goal and Marcus Ragnarsson scored the game-winner.

Craig Johnson scored the Kings’ lone goal and Jamie Storr made 25 saves in losing his second consecutive start.

It was evident early that the Kings lacked the same crispness they had in a 5-2 win over Colorado on Saturday, but they were able to keep the game scoreless for much of the first period because of some solid saves by Storr.

In making only his third start since Feb. 3, Storr stopped good scoring chances by Granato, Bernie Nicholls and John MacLean before the Kings took a 1-0 lead at 16:02.

San Jose’s Ragnarsson turned over the puck in the Sharks’ zone after he was pressured by the Kings’ Yanic Perreault. Craig Johnson picked up the turnover and slid a shot between the legs of Vernon for his 14th goal of the season.

Still, the Sharks began the second with confidence.

Rookie Patrick Marleau had three shots to tie the score from outside the right post less than a minute into the period, but the puck hit Storr on the helmet on one shot and on his body on the other two.

Granato and the Sharks didn’t waste their next scoring opportunity at the 2:21 mark. Jeff Friesen made a nice play to keep the Kings’ zone and passed to Marco Sturm, who found Granato alone above the crease to tie the score, 1-1.

San Jose was able to take its first lead when the Kings’ Ray Ferraro was called for boarding, giving the Sharks their second power play of the game at 7:42. San Jose needed one minute to score after stretching the Kings’ penalty killers with several nice passes.

Ragnarsson made up for his turnover when he whacked home a goal from the left circle at 8:42. The goal was set up by sharp cross-ice passes by Marleau and Murray Craven.

The Sharks appeared to have taken a two-goal lead midway in the period, but Andrei Zyuzin’s score was disallowed when Granato was ruled in the crease while tied up with Rob Blake, his close friend.

“When you go down the stretch protecting a lot of one-goal leads, you have to be able to do it,” said San Jose Coach Darryl Sutter about the Sharks’ ability to hold the Kings in the third period.

The Kings, who play Dallas tonight at the Great Western Forum, were outshot, 27-22, and have lost two of their last three games.

“We have to win games. . . . We have to win the tight ones,” Storr said. “We can’t just win once in a while. . . . We need to score. Our defense is playing well and not letting [teams] score very much. We’re just not scoring every game.”

Said center Jozef Stumpel: “We didn’t play our game. We need to keep getting the puck in deep.”