Kings Keep It Simple and Win

For the first time since his Feb. 15 accident, Coach Andy Murray was behind the Kings’ bench for a game at Staples Center on Monday. And he couldn’t have been treated to a better effort from his team.

The Kings fell one short of matching a franchise record for fewest shots allowed in a game and used goals by Ziggy Palffy and Philippe Boucher to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks, 2-1, in front of 16,956.

With their victory, the Kings improved to 31-22-9-4 and moved into the No. 5 playoff spot in the Western Conference with 75 points. King goaltender Felix Potvin faced only 11 shots and stopped 10 to help the Kings move to 17-6-2-2 over their last 27 games.

“All of the games are big right now, and it doesn’t matter who we’re playing,” said Boucher, who scored his game-winning goal with 4:59 left. “Every day the standings are going to change. You lose a couple of games and you’re almost out and if you win a couple, you can move almost into first place.”

In his third game since returning to the team after his single-vehicle accident and post-concussion recovery, Murray was glad to see his team hold off the pesky Blackhawks, who began the game second in the Central Division with 80 points.

“Tonight’s game was a credit to our players,” said Murray, whose team outshot Chicago, 32-11. “They stayed relentless for 60 minutes. We were on top of [the Blackhawks] from the drop of the puck.”

Chicago, which played without injured center Alex Zhamnov, had problems with the Kings all night.

“They did a good job in the neutral zone,” Chicago Coach Brian Sutter said. “Their defense, I thought, was real good. They battled, they didn’t fool around with the puck. When they didn’t have a play, they used the glass and kept it going ahead and they checked hard.”

For the first 20 minutes, the Kings blitzed Chicago goaltender Jocelyn Thibault from all angles. But despite their aggressive attack, which saw them register the first 11 shots, the Kings didn’t get the puck past Thibault until 18.6 seconds were left in the period.

That’s when Palffy and Jason Allison teamed up for a highlight goal after forcing a Chicago turnover deep in the Blackhawks’ zone. Palffy finished the play with a turnaround slap shot from the slot for his 25th goal of the season and 11th over his last 11 games.

“We have to play a simple game,” said Palffy, who has 26 points over his last 24 games. “Right now, everyone is trying to win, so it is up to us to keep it simple.”

With a 1-0 lead and a 12-2 edge in shots after one period, the Kings found themselves tied with the Blackhawks less than two minutes into the second. After shaking free from the Kings’ Craig Johnson, Chicago’s Tyler Arnason scored his third goal of the season when he was able to squeeze the puck between Potvin’s right skate and the left goal post at 1:54.

In the third period, both teams had solid opportunities to score but either missed the net or were stopped by the goalies. That lasted until nearly five minutes were left when the Kings finally broke through on Boucher’s goal.

With most of the action near the Chicago bench, Boucher switched sides with his defense partner Mathieu Schneider and took a pass from Palffy on the left side. Then, from inside the blue line, Boucher launched a blast that beat Thibault to give the Kings a 2-1 lead at 15:01.

“I put it on net as hard as I could,” Boucher said about his winning goal. “I tried to beat [Thibault] on his right side. I got a good piece of it, got lucky and it went in.”

From there, it was only a matter of holding on for the Kings, who improved to 14-12-5-1 at Staples Center.

“They did a great job of backchecking and we weren’t able to get any rushes,” Chicago right wing Tony Amonte said.

The Kings, who do not play again until Thursday, know this was a great start for a key three-game homestand.

“We just have to keep doing more of the same,” Boucher said. “I think we dominated this game.... We did everything the way we wanted to do.”