Reality Catches Up With Kings

There are no consolation prizes in the NHL, no satisfaction for the Kings in knowing they’ve been resilient and resourceful beyond all expectations but won’t be good enough to grab the last brass ring in the Western Conference.

Their 2-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Monday took all the air out of a crowd that wanted to believe the season wasn’t lost. But reality was colder than the ice at Staples Center: the Kings have lost four straight games and five of the last six. They’re three points out of eighth with seven games to play -- all against teams that hold playoff positions.

“Yeah, this hurts,” defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “I don’t think we’ve had a four-game losing streak this whole year. We’ve dug ourselves a hole. We’re in a tough situation. But there’s absolutely no one feeling sorry for us. We’ve got to go on the road, where we’ve played some of our best hockey, and just go for it.

“We’ve got nothing to lose. We’ve got to come home with eight points in these next four games.”

Even if they go 4-0 on a trip that starts Wednesday in Vancouver, they’ll need help from other teams. They believed it wouldn’t come to that, that their grit and determination would outweigh their iffy goaltending and mediocre special-teams play.

They took it far. They just couldn’t take the last, big step.

The Oilers trailed them by four points, 73-69, two weeks ago but have won five straight games and earned points in 13 consecutive games (8-0-2-3). Ty Conklin, who became the starting goaltender when the Oilers sent Tommy Salo to Colorado just before the trade deadline, came through in the clutch. They battled the Kings for every inch and prevailed on sheer will, as the Kings had for most of the season.

“It’s the culmination of a lot of facets of our game coming together,” Coach Craig MacTavish said. “I don’t think you can figure on one reason in particular.”

The same is true for the Kings’ slide. They got no lift from deadline-day acquisition Anson Carter, who has been a perimeter player on a team that must grind for every goal, or from the return of Martin Straka. They were rarely awful, but they rarely got inspirational performances when they needed one, as the Oilers got Monday from the tireless Ryan Smyth.

“Probably timely scoring,” Coach Andy Murray said when asked where things have gone wrong for his team, “and it’s kind of both sides of the equation. The other games [that they won] we got goals when we needed to have them. We had Edmonton on the run in the third period and had opportunity after opportunity and they got the timely goal....

“We battled all year. You can look at the last four and I don’t know that there’s a heck of a lot of difference.”

The difference is they’re now playing against the odds. And it’s a battle they can’t win.

Steady Eddie

Ed Olczyk never thought much about life after hockey until he neared the end of a 16-season NHL career that included a stint with the Kings.

“One of my best friends, Denis Savard, is an assistant coach [in Chicago],” Olczyk said, “and I thought it would be a great way to stay in the game and be able to teach.”

As a rookie coach with the financially challenged Pittsburgh Penguins, Olczyk is doing as much learning as teaching. Some of the lessons are painful, such as an 18-game winless streak in January and February, the loss of player-owner Mario Lemieux to a hip injury, and the need to slash payroll and trade Straka to the Kings.

But lately, Olczyk’s teachings seem to be sinking in. The Penguins, largely a bunch of kids and retreads, are 8-2-2 in their last 12 games and have shut out Dallas, beaten Toronto by a goal and tied the Philadelphia Flyers.

“At the start of the year, we talked about our plan, the big picture, which was giving our young players a chance to play,” Olczyk said. “This team works hard every night. There are some games it just doesn’t happen, but what I’m probably most proud of is sticking to our plan and giving those young players a chance to play in all situations.

“The first 10 games, we were near .500 (3-4-3) and we were giving up a lot of shots. We still had Mario and we still had Marty. Then Mario got hurt and we got some other injuries and it got tough.”

Olczyk has some talent to work with, such as defenseman Dick Tanrstrom, winger Aleksey Morozov and rookie Ryan Malone, a 20-goal scorer and the son of Penguin alum and scout Greg Malone. Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury was returned to his junior team so the team wouldn’t have to pay him a big bonus, but he was often sensational in 21 games.

“I enjoy the relationships with the players,” Olczyk said. “There are three things every player wants, no matter if they play 10 games or 1,000: Discipline, structure and consistency in everything the coach does, and I think I’ve held true to form.... We’re building for 12 months from now, 18 months from now. It’s important to lay a foundation now so that players know what’s expected.”

Had Lemieux played a full season, “We’d be a lot better and have more points,” Olczyk said. “The players would play a lot better and the coaches would coach differently. It was a huge loss for us. But I always try to look at the positive side, which is that someone else is getting his ice time and we’re evaluating a guy who maybe wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity.”

Consorting With the Enemy

Most general managers avoid reporters or tolerate them grudgingly, but San Jose’s Doug Wilson spends every game sitting among the writers who cover his team.

It goes back to Nov. 21, when the Sharks were at Phoenix and Wilson was watching the game in a suite with friends. Distracted by the chatter, he decided to seek refuge in the press box, where the only open spot was beside one of the writers.

“I sat down and we scored a goal,” Wilson said. “I got up to leave, and we scored another goal. So I sat down and we scored five straight. I’m not saying I’m superstitious but since then, we’ve had a pretty good run.”

Since he joined the ink-stained wretches, the Sharks are 34-14-4-4. Overall, they have 92 points, their third-highest point total in franchise history.

The Team That Fights Together ...

By the Montreal Gazette’s count, the Canadiens last week had their third intramural fight of the season.

The latest skirmish occurred when forward Mike Ribiero took a shot in practice that struck goalie Jose Theodore on the collarbone and neck. The Gazette reported that Theodore tore off his mask and was about to go after Ribiero before sanity prevailed.

Theodore reportedly laughed about it afterward “and promised that his pain-in-the-neck buddy was going to be buying him dinner.”

Previous bouts matched Craig Rivet against Pierre Dagenais, and Ribiero against Saku Koivu.

Slap Shots

Yet another reason to believe there will be a lockout after the collective bargaining agreement expires Sept. 15: The league and the players’ association can’t agree on whether they’ve agreed to resume negotiations.

Responding to an e-mail inquiring whether the NHL and the union had chosen dates to talk for the first time since Oct. 1, Bill Daly, the NHL’s chief legal officer, said they had. “We scheduled two days each for April and May,” he wrote.

However, a spokesman for the NHLPA said the sides were still exchanging dates and that nothing had been set.

That’s not a good omen for bigger agreements.

Larry Pleau, general manager of Team USA for this summer’s World Cup of Hockey, said he and his staff would meet within the next few weeks to choose a coach for the U.S. team that will play at the World Championships next month in the Czech Republic.

Ron Wilson will coach the U.S. at the World Cup, but his Sharks will make the playoffs and keep him out of the world championships. Joel Quenneville, fired by the St. Louis Blues in February, will coach Canada in the world championships.

A city committee in Ottawa voted last week to ban fans from wearing Toronto jerseys when the Maple Leafs play the Senators in the Corel Centre on April 3, stipulating that scofflaws will be asked to make a donation to the Ottawa Food Bank.

The Maple Leafs made a donation to food banks in Ottawa and Toronto to cover any “violations” and challenged the Senators to make a similar donation. Nice to know there are no other problems to occupy these politicians.

The NHL moved swiftly to suspend Calgary Coach Darryl Sutter and forward Krzysztof Oliwa after a brawl Saturday against Nashville.

Sutter got two games for “player selection and team conduct,” a polite way of saying that when he sent out the rugged foursome of Oliwa, Rhett Warrener, Mike Commodore and Robyn Regehr with 2.5 seconds to play, he didn’t tell them to dance.

Sutter had defenseman Regehr take the draw, leaving Oliwa’s hands free to punch people and push an official, for which Oliwa got a three-game suspension. Goalies Miikka Kiprusoff of Calgary and Tomas Vokoun of Nashville got involved in the ensuing melee, dangerous and stupid for teams with playoff aspirations.