King

There was a good deal of playoff chatter around the Kings training facility Sunday morning. After an abbreviated skate, with the team still waiting to hear about its second-round matchup, players imagined the excitement of a freeway series against the Ducks. They talked about facing a familiar - and tough - opponent in the San Jose Sharks. Dwight King had no preference either way. He was just hoping for a happy ending. "In the playoffs, you have more eyes on you," he said.

The crowd yelled for Dustin Penner to shoot as the final seconds of the second period ticked off the clock Friday at Staples Center. His teammates yelled for Penner to shoot and the coaches joined the chaotic chorus. Penner, not known for always taking coaches' advice, listened this time. "If you don't try you don't know," he said. Because he tried, and because his long shot glanced off the stick of St. Louis defenseman Roman Polak and changed direction enough to catch goaltender Brian Elliott off guard, the Kings took and held a one-goal lead that launched them into the second round of the playoffs.

Making history has become routine for the Kings. Last spring they became the first No. 8 seed to win the Stanley Cup, upsetting the 1-2-3 teams in the West before defeating the New Jersey Devils in the final. After opening their title defense by dismissing the fourth-seeded St. Louis Blues, the Kings appear to have picked up where they left off. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the fifth-seeded Kings are the first NHL team to win five consecutive playoff series despite playing Game 1 on the road in each series.

After St. Louis ties it in the final minute of regulation, Slava Voynov's overtime goal gives the Kings a 3-2 lead in the series. ST. LOUIS — Kings Coach Darryl Sutter had no special message for his players after they came achingly close to beating the St. Louis Blues in regulation time Wednesday but yielded a last-minute goal and had to come back onto the ice at Scottrade Center. He knew that no one needed instructions or a pep talk. "You practiced overtime your whole life.

When the pressure reached its nail-biting peak, when the St. Louis Blues twice took leads over the Kings on Monday and could have seized control of Game 4 of their playoff series - and the series itself - the Kings knew it was time to remain purposeful, not to panic. "We've been in that position before and I think these guys don't get too down on themselves," forward Jeff Carter said Tuesday. "We stayed calm and we chipped away. " Goals by Carter and Dustin Penner brought the Kings from 2-0 down to even before the end of the first period.

In these tense times, with the Kings having scored one goal in each of their first three playoff games against the St. Louis Blues and needing a win Monday at Staples Center to tie the series, it somehow made perfect sense that defenseman Alec Martinez wore a huge sombrero onto the ice for practice Sunday along with one white sock, one red sock and a green jersey. As much sense, maybe, as a low-scoring team deploying seven defensemen Saturday. But that worked out pretty well: Martinez, playing for the first time since April 2, used his mobility to jump into the craziness around the net and earn an assist on the Slava Voynov goal that lifted the Kings to a 1-0 victory.

Switching from cold, snowy vistas to the backdrop of a Pacific sunset, the NHL on Monday confirmed the Kings and the Ducks will face off in an outdoor game Jan. 25 at 7 p.m. Dodger Stadium. The contest, the first regular-season NHL game scheduled for an outdoor venue in a warm-weather city, will be played on a portable rink laid out from first base to third base. Contingency plans will be made for rain or other issues. "I think that's a perfect setting for a hockey game," said Kelly Cheeseman, chief operating officer of the Kings' parent company, AEG. "With the mountains and the palm trees in the background, you couldn't ask for a more magical setting.

The Kings' offense, dormant through the first three games of their opening-round playoff series against the St. Louis Blues, awoke Monday in time to prolong their season and their reign as Stanley Cup champions. Justin Williams completed a two-goal rally in the third period with a deflection that withstood a video review, as the Kings barged past the Blues for a 4-3 victory at Staples Center and evened the series at two games each. "Now it's all tied up and best of three," said center Anze Kopitar, whose first goal in 20 games, off a feed from a hard-digging Dustin Brown, had brought the Kings even at 7 minutes 14 seconds of the third period.

Jonathan Quick bravely but needlessly took the blame for the Kings' losses in the first two games of their opening-round playoff series against St. Louis. When he backed up Slava Voynov's second-period goal Saturday with a 30-save performance in a gritty 1-0 victory for the Kings at Staples Center, he refused to take credit for hauling the Kings back into a series in which they were slipping toward postseason oblivion. “We were never out of it, just won a game,” he said, in typical low-key fashion after his fifth career playoff shutout.

An old coach named Fred "The Fog" Shero once described the relationship between Canadians and their national pastime this way: "Hockey is where we live. … Life is just a place where we spend time between games. " It could feel like that in Southern California over the next few weeks. This is hockey's time to shine with two local teams in the hunt for the Stanley Cup, the Kings fighting to repeat as champions and the Ducks riding one of the better records in the league. The way things have gone for the Lakers and Clippers, and with our baseball teams struggling, the sport from up north could win some new fans.