Donnelly Gets Out of the Doghouse : Kings: Left wing has hat trick in 6-3 victory over the Blues. Carson, Granato also end scoring droughts.

You might say almost all the Kings’ men get their eventual turn on Coach Barry Melrose’s personal seesaw of playing time: Down one week, up the next.

In the Kings’ 6-3 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday, there was a dramatic turnaround for left wing Mike Donnelly, right wing Tony Granato and center Jimmy Carson before a sellout crowd of 16,005.

The Kings (9-7-2) are undefeated in their last eight home games, going 7-0-1, and they handed the Blues their first loss in eight games.

Of course, there are varying degrees of turnaround. Donnelly, who had been benched for three consecutive games the first week of the season, scored the second hat trick of his career. Granato picked up his first points in 12 games with two assists, helping set up two of Donnelly’s goals. And Carson, playing in his first game since Oct. 27, scored once.

For Donnelly, his temporary fall from grace had been especially frustrating since it came after only one game, a season-opening loss to Vancouver. His father had flown out to Los Angeles to watch him play a few games. Instead, the Donnellys watched from the Forum’s seats.

“It makes you realize what you’ve got,” Donnelly said. “After being in the Stanley Cup finals, you’ve been on top of the world. Then you go to the press box. . . . It was a tough time. I don’t know if it was a test or not, but I wasn’t going to let it beat me.”

Said Melrose: “He’s really out of it (the doghouse). He’s on top of the doghouse now. He’s almost ready to get his own room in the real house. Mike responded the way I thought he would.”

Helping him respond was the new line combination of Shawn McEachern centering Donnelly and Granato. The three started playing together in Winnipeg on Oct. 29 and their speed immediately created scoring chances. Now, all three are starting to capitalize on their opportunities. McEachern, for instance, assisted on all three of Donnelly’s goals.

However, Granato had been having the most difficult time of all three of late. He went pointless in 11 consecutive games, dating to Oct. 16 against Calgary.

“This is a drought,” said Granato, who scored 37 goals last season. “I’ve been through slumps, but never a drought like this.”

Melrose handles different players differently. For instance, left wing Luc Robitialle has not scored in 12 consecutive games but has not been benched and continues to receive plenty of ice time and consistent power-play duty. Granato, for his part, said he received constant encouragement from Melrose, assistant coach Cap Raeder and his teammates.

Wayne Gretzky’s support meant the most to Granato.

“We were talking after the Vancouver game (on Wednesday) and we were worried about how we’ve been playing on the road,” Granato said. “I just said, ‘I’ve got to worry about myself. I’m bottoming out.’ He said, ‘We don’t need to worry about you. You’ll be there.’ That’s what you need a captain for.”

Now--surprise!--there are new occupants in the doghouse. Melrose drastically curtailed Tomas Sandstrom’s ice time against the Blues, almost reducing him to a power-play specialist.

“Frankly, Tomas hasn’t been playing well,” Melrose said. “The bottom line is we need him to be great and he hasn’t been great. He hasn’t played hard or physical and stayed on the puck.”

And so, the ice time comes and goes. For example, there is Carson, who scored the game’s first goal into an empty net at 1:51 of the first period. St. Louis goaltender Jim Hrivnak had come out after the puck took a crazy hop off the boards when King forward John Druce dumped it in.

The line of Robitaille-Carson-Druce was rewarded with more ice time and Carson played more than he has in weeks, totaling 16 shifts.

Said Melrose: “He (Carson) played well. I’m happy with him.

“I don’t bench people for 10 years.”