Kings Say They’ve Turned Over a New Leaf

Less than two weeks ago, the Kings appeared destined to reach this season’s all-star break as the worst team in the NHL.

Instead, they will enter as one the league’s hottest teams after a dramatic come-from-behind 3-2 victory over Toronto Wednesday night before 15,726 at Maple Leaf Gardens.

Kai Nurminen scored twice and Eddie Olczyk scored the game-winning goal with 3:49 remaining as the Kings extended their unbeaten streak to five games after suffering through a seven-week-long losing slump in which they won only four of 21 games.

“As a team I think we’re a little bit more mature now,” Olczyk said. “I think we’ve grown together and we’re realizing what each of us has to do and how we have to play in order for us to be successful.

“We’re playing a lot better. We’re getting key things at key times. Key goaltending, key penalty-kill, key power plays all at the right times.”

Goaltender Byron Dafoe continued his mastery over the Maple Leafs with his third victory over them this season. Dafoe may not have matched the career-high 56 saves he made at Toronto last season, but he came close with 40, including two spectacular stops on Mats Sundin and Todd Warriner in the final minutes of regulation.

“I love playing in this building,” said Dafoe, who won his second consecutive start to improve to 10-7-1. “I just turn up my play a notch here.”

For most of the third period, it did not seem that Dafoe or the Kings would walk out of Maple Leaf Gardens with any points, let alone two. That’s because 5:14 into the period, Toronto took a 2-1 lead on Sundin’s 28th goal.

Two weeks ago, Toronto’s one-goal lead would have easily stood up against the Kings. But not Wednesday night against a King team that had rallied from a two-goal deficit to gain a tie at Detroit the night before.

“I knew that the game wasn’t over,” Dafoe said. “The way we’ve been coming back lately, I just knew if we could just hold them off at 2-1 you never know what could happen.”

Despite playing without injured defensemen Rob Blake, Sean O’Donnell, Doug Zmolek, Steven Finn and Philippe Boucher, who suffered a slight concussion at the end of the first period, the Kings’ defense dug in and prevented Toronto from adding to its lead.

Then with nearly five minutes remaining in the game, defenseman John Slaney--who had been in Coach Larry Robinson’s doghouse the last few weeks--made a perfect pass from the top of the right circle to a slashing Nurminen, who scored his second goal of the game to tie the score, 2-2.

“I had played a couple of games without [scoring any] goals,” said Nurminen, who now has nine goals and a five-game scoring streak. “It was a good time for me to get two now.”

The Kings struck again less than two minutes later when Olczyk picked up a loose puck at the Maple Leafs’ blue line and faked out defenseman David Cooper and goaltender Felix Potvin to score from the left circle for his 14th goal.

That’s when Dafoe took over. He stopped one rush after another by the Maple Leafs, who extended their losing streak to six games and lost to the Kings for the third time.

“This really is a good time for us to have a break because we’ll now get a chance to get some more of our injured guys back,” said Robinson, whose team finished unbeaten in back-to-back games for the first time this season. “The guys have really been playing hard. The difference is that we’re getting strong goaltending to go along with good defensive work from our young defensemen.”

The Kings will now have off until Sunday and then have two days of practice before playing back-to-back games at home against New Jersey and at San Jose.

“You always want to go into a break on a roll, but this really feels good,” said Slaney, who played in his first game after not dressing for three in a row. “We now have a chance to go home and relax before we come back and keep our roll going.”