Lehtinen Strikes Twice as Stars Defeat Kings, 2-1

For long stretches of the third period Tuesday night, the Kings kept the pressure on Ed Belfour, peppering the Dallas Stars’ veteran goaltender with shots from conceivably every angle.

He never flinched.

Belfour, 36, may be long in the tooth but he was a pain in the neck for the Kings, who gave up two second-period goals to Jere Lehtinen and lost to the Stars, 2-1, in front of a sellout crowd of 18,532 at the new American Airlines Center.

The Kings, whose only goal was scored by Ziggy Palffy on a nifty play at 19:31 of the first period, outshot the Stars, 10-4, in the third period.

At one point, they held an 8-0 edge after Belfour stopped a flurry of shots.

“Ed-die, Ed-die,” chanted the appreciative fans in the $420-million arena.

On the Kings’ bench, however, frustration started to set in as Belfour helped the Stars extend the NHL’s longest active streak of earning points when leading after two periods. Since Jan. 19, 2000, when they squandered a 1-0 lead in a 3-1 loss to the Mighty Ducks at the Arrowhead Pond, the Stars are 50-0-4-3 when leading after two periods.

Belfour, of course, is a major reason.

“We had a lot of great shots on him, obviously a lot of chances to score,” King center Bryan Smolinski said. “But he made some unbelievable saves.”

King Coach Andy Murray juggled his lines, moving Eric Belanger to a unit with wingers Glen Murray and Adam Deadmarsh, and teaming center Jozef Stumpel with Craig Johnson and rookie Jaroslav Bednar in an attempt to produce more balance than he saw Sunday in a 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild.

The coach was encouraged by the stronger effort, if not the result.

“I thought we played with a lot of energy,” he said. “It was probably our best effort of the first three games. Even though we dominated Phoenix [in a 2-2 season-opening tie with the Coyotes], I thought we played better here tonight....

“You play hard like that and do the things that we’re trying to do, you’ll get your points in the long run. That’s what we have to look at.”

On Tuesday, what they had to look at was a premier goaltender.

“He made some big saves,” Deadmarsh said of Belfour, who stopped 25 shots as the Kings remained winless at 0-2-1. “I thought we had some pretty good traffic in front of the net on him too, but he still found the puck.

“That’s going to happen some nights, but a good hockey team finds ways to score goals. That’s something we need to learn, earlier rather than later.”

The only time the puck got past Belfour was when Palffy put it there after picking off a pass by Pierre Turgeon in the Kings’ zone. Palffy carried the puck up the right side before cutting sharply through the faceoff circle and across the slot.

Once Belfour and defenseman Derian Hatcher committed themselves, sprawling onto the ice, Palffy lifted a shot over them and into the net.

To add injury to insult for the Stars, Belfour fell over the prone Hatcher as the goaltender flopped onto his stomach, his left skate coming down on the defenseman’s forehead. Hatcher, the Stars’ captain, suffered a deep laceration over his right eye, requiring several stitches, but returned to the game.

A great second effort by Lehtinen enabled the Stars to tie the score at 1-1 with a power-play goal at 9:15 of the second period.

His shot from outside the crease was stopped by King goaltender Felix Potvin, the puck shooting up into the air. Lehtinen, falling backward, poked it into the net with his stick.

Five minutes 30 seconds later, Lehtinen scored the winner on a wrist shot from near the top of the left circle.

The determined Kings weren’t finished, but neither was Belfour.

One of his most memorable saves was made on a shot by Glen Murray, whose attempt from the right circle banged off Belfour’s toe.

“You’ve just got to capitalize on your chances,” Murray said. “If I put that in, it’s 2-2 and it’s a different game. You know, you only get a couple chances a game and you’ve got to put them in.”

What could he have done differently?

“Put it in.”

Easier said than done.