Kings Make Life Easy for Storr, 5-2

Jamie Storr was candid about how his job might have been the easiest in Staples Center Tuesday night.

“I told [Kings’ goalie Stephane Fiset] that you could have put a ‘Shooter-Tooter’ in there and it would have been 5-2,” he said after the Kings got third-period goals from Rob Blake, Bryan Smolinski and Donald Audette to beat Washington by just that score.

It was that simple for Storr, who was making his first start in goal since Oct. 7 in Tampa, Fla., and who figured even the cardboard cutout goalie of his Canadian youth could have handled most of the 17 shots he faced.

Easiest of all, perhaps, were the three shots Washington produced in the second period in which the teams combined for eight.

“The way the guys played in front of me was great,” said Storr, who was starting for only the second time in the Kings’ 11 games.

“The team played awesome in front of me.”

Storr got the offensive help he needed almost halfway through the third period when Blake issued a wake-up call in what was to that point largely a house of slumber for the 13,169 in attendance.

Blake took a drop pass from Ziggy Palffy and powered a puck past Olaf Kolzig to break a 2-2 tie. It was Blake’s fifth goal of the season.

Only 33 seconds later, Smolinski pulled a pass from Audette out of the air and sent it past Kolzig for a 4-2 lead.

That became 5-2 when Audette scored his second goal of the game, a wrap-around at 11:44.

The rout was on, and it was left for the Kings to merely hold on, something they had failed to do in a 2-2 tie at Washington only two weeks ago.

That rout was hard on Washington Coach Ron Wilson, who figures his players are making it hard on him.

“If some guys don’t want to play the way I ask, I’ll just leave,” he said, fuming. “If some guys won’t listen to me, that’s fine. I’ll find something else to do.

“If we have to go to Anaheim [on Friday night] and sit some big people out and we get our . . . handed to us, I’ll do it.”

By contrast, the Kings enjoyed their leap into a tie with San Jose for first place in the Pacific Division. Both teams have 14 points, and are tied for second in the Western Conference behind Vancouver with 15 points.

Yes, it’s early.

The Kings and Washington played an ugly middle period in which the Kings outshot the visitors, but by only 5-3.

Three of those King shots came on a fruitless power play that introduced the first 1:34 of the period, but one of the other two was art among the ugliness and produced a goal by Audette that tied the score, 2-2, at 6:16.

Audette, who scored his third goal, sneaked around the Washington goal while Glen Murray found himself sandwiched by two Capitals about 30 feet from the net.

As he fell to the ice, Murray sent a pass to Audette, who was alone on Kolzig’s right side, with the goal mouth yawning at him.

It was a flash of light--and not just the red one--in an otherwise dreary period in which Washington’s first shot came more than halfway through.

The back-and-forth march to futility followed an opening period in which the Capitals took advantage of King errors to get goals from Peter Bondra and Calle Johansson and take a 2-0 lead.

Bondra’s goal was short-handed and came when he fielded a pass by King defenseman Aki Berg that bounced over Garry Galley’s stick.

Only Storr was between Bondra and the goal, and he proved to be little impediment, Bondra’s shot sailing over his right shoulder for a 1-0 lead at 11:29.

Johansson scored 2:52 later, but Luc Robitaille cut the Kings’ deficit in half at 15:44 with his ninth goal of the season.