Puck

Mike Downey, for two days straight you have written about what a bad guy Marty McSorley is for checking Doug Gilmour with his elbows high. You first said the puck was nowhere near Gilmour, and that's a lie. The guy just released the puck as he was hit. Why don't you write about Toronto's cheap shots; the slashes, the elbows, the cross-checks, the headlocks in front of the net. You should write how disgraceful the Toronto fans are. This is where...

Jarret Stoll's timing was perfect. Stoll scored his first goals of the season, twice giving the lead to the Kings, who went on to beat the Phoenix Coyotes, 5-3, on Saturday night. "Very timely goals," Stoll said. "That was the story of the game." Stoll broke a 2-2 tie when he took a pass from Scott Parse in the low left slot, faked Ilya Bryzgalov to the ice with a backhand move and pulled the puck across for a forehand shot into the open right side of the net with 17:44 to go. Parse had taken the puck from Coyotes defenseman Keith Yandle just outside the Phoenix zone.

If I were a fan of professional hockey, I would hesitate to identify myself in print. And I certainly would not emphasize the fact that attendance in the NHL has increased steadily since the "players" have been encouraged to ignore the puck and turn their sticks on one another. JOHN P. TAYLOR Solana Beach

The 13-year-old girl hit by a puck at an NHL game died from a rare injury to an artery that was damaged when her head snapped back, a coroner said Wednesday. Brittanie Cecil died Monday, two days after she was struck in the forehead by the puck at a game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Calgary Flames. The damage to the artery, which runs from the spine to the back of the brain, led to a "vicious cycle" of clotting in the artery and swelling of the brain, said Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis, who performed the autopsy.

Enforcer Kevin Sawyer was surprised Wednesday to receive a two-game suspension for charging King goalie Felix Potvin during Monday's game. It is the second suspension this season for Sawyer, who sat out five games in December after running Calgary goalie Mike Vernon in a fight-filled game Dec. 8. On Monday, Potvin went behind the net to retrieve the puck and Sawyer skated in and dropped him. Sawyer received a five-minute charging penalty.

Philadelphia goalie Ron Hextall gave Washington a lot to think about when the Flyers knocked the Capitals out of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Perhaps it is time for the entire National Hockey League to give some thought to Hextall, whose play promises to revolutionize hockey as much as Bobby Orr's did in the late '60s and early '70s. It is traditional thinking that a goalie's job is to stop the puck. In the last two decades that role has been expanded to blocking the puck behind the net when it's dumped in, then leaving it for a defenseman.

Jeff Carter patiently went to the net and was rewarded. He chipped in the puck off a pass from Mike Richards to give the Kings a 3-0 lead 4 minutes 15 seconds into the third period at Staples Center Richards picked up the puck off the boards, then slipped behind the net. He had Dustin Penner camped in front of goaltender Martin Brodeur, but found Carter alone a few feet to the left of the net. It was Carter's sixth goal of the playoffs. Two minutes later, the Kings' Justin Williams corralled his own rebound and slipped the puck past Brodeur for a power-play goal and a 4-0 lead.

The painstaking progress made by the Ducks in training camp and the first three weeks of the season seemed to vanish in about an Anaheim minute. OK, to be generous, make that about three Anaheim minutes. They played a train wreck of three-plus minutes against Phoenix on Sunday, giving up three goals in that second-period span and couldn't quite catch up in the third period as the Coyotes hung on, 5-4, at Honda Center. Ryan Getzlaf scored twice, his first two of the season, and the other Ducks goals came from defensemen Lubomir Visnovsky and Kurtis Foster, who was making his debut with Anaheim.

The puck was standing on edge on a shelf above Lee Fogolin's locker at the Northlands Coliseum late Wednesday night. It isn't often that Fogolin gets to keep a puck after a game, so he wanted it displayed prominently. "I've only been given the game puck twice in my 11-year career," Fogolin said. "I got it on my first NHL goal when I was a rookie with Buffalo (1973-74), and the one you see right above me." You didn't have to ask Fogolin which was more memorable.

NEWARK, N.J. — Dustin Penner had the best imagery, likening the arena to a Russian sauna, and Dustin Brown said the puck behaved more like a bouncing tennis ball than anything else, all greatly testing their poise and patience. On a night that required sweat and skill, the Kings got both in a 2-1 overtime victory against the New Jersey Devils in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final on Wednesday night. Center Anze Kopitar scored on a breakaway 8 minutes 13 seconds into overtime, moving the Kings to within three victories of their first Cup in franchise history.