Kings run out of excuses, and they know it

The Ducks spent their brief summer vacation showing off the Stanley Cup to their friends and relatives.

The Kings, after missing the playoffs for the fourth straight season, spent five months formulating their 39th annual rebuilding plan.

No matter what happens from here on, the Ducks will always be able to say they won the Cup before the Kings, who had a 26-season head start. Painful though it may be, Kings fans should consider the Ducks’ triumph a source of inspiration, not revulsion.

All the excuses Kings regimes have trotted out to mask their follies -- warm weather isn’t conducive to focusing on hockey, the team had too many injuries, too tough a travel schedule and too few demands from media and fans -- were immediately invalidated when the Ducks hoisted that big silver trophy in June.

Apologies from the Kings aren’t acceptable anymore.

And they know it.

“For hockey in California, it’s a good thing. It puts a little more pressure on us, too,” said defenseman Rob Blake, who had to leave town to get his name engraved on the Cup, with Colorado in 2001.

“I look at it that if they’re going to do it, there’s no reason why we can’t have that same type of success.”

Well, there is one reason.

It’s called goaltending.

Jean-Sebastien Giguere, the most valuable player in the Ducks’ seven-game loss to New Jersey in the 2003 Cup finals, was exceptional again last spring. Backup Ilya Bryzgalov has filled in capably for Giguere and would be a starter on most other teams.

The Kings’ goaltending was atrocious last season and has hovered around that level since Felix Potvin was the starter on their last two playoff teams, in 2001 and 2002.

Dan Cloutier was anointed the No. 1 goalie when he arrived from Vancouver and fumbled the job away. Team morale disintegrated when the goalies, some of them two leagues above their abilities, couldn’t make routine stops.

Jason LaBarbera might have righted the Titanic, but he would have been subject to waivers if the Kings had called him up from the American Hockey League and they would have lost him.

“I’m amazed this franchise hasn’t developed its own goalie over 40 years,” General Manager Dean Lombardi said.

Believe it.

Cloutier, LaBarbera and free-agent signee Jean-Sebastien Aubin are vying for the starting job this season, but the early star of training camp is Jonathan Bernier, a 2006 first-round pick. Bernier played the last 28 minutes 41 seconds of the Kings’ 3-2 exhibition loss to the Ducks on Saturday at Staples Center and was blameless on the lone shot that beat him of the 17 he faced.

But -- and you knew there had to be a “but” -- Bernier is only 19, and NHL rules say he must stay with the Kings or be returned to junior hockey. He can’t be sent to the minors.

He’s too good for junior competition, but thrusting him into the NHL to play behind a team that has a lot of holes defensively might damage his confidence. He’s too good to ruin, and even the Kings realize that.

“We’re going to give ourselves as long an opportunity to make decisions as we possibly can,” Coach Marc Crawford said.

“I think that the job of any player is to make it difficult for an organization to make a decision on you, and I would be remiss if I didn’t say he was making it difficult for us. But that’s one game.”

One big impression, though.

“I think we saw a glimpse of the future in the second half there with Bernier. That’s the guy they’ve got to groom,” Blake said.

By the time Bernier becomes a starter, Blake may be long gone. He will be 38 in December and is in the last year of a two-year contract.

Blake is expected to be appointed the team’s captain, but his main duty will be to support the ambitions of young forwards Michael Cammalleri, Alexander Frolov, Anze Kopitar and Dustin Brown and mentor prize defenseman Jack Johnson. For that contingent of 20-somethings -- and for the Kings -- the future is now.

“I need more of these younger guys,” Lombardi said. “Those guys should now take responsibility for winning.”

Blake believes those players are ready to become leaders. Most of all, he doesn’t want them to endure the failures and do-overs he went through with the Kings.

“I think the rebuild year was last year. This year you look to get into the playoffs and compete and get that experience,” Blake said.

“I think it’s a big difference from last year. Are we still rebuilding? To a point. But I think we’ll be much more competitive than we were last year.”

That will have to be enough for their fans, including a season-ticket base that has shrunk to 11,500.

No one is expecting the Kings to claim the Cup this season. Fans just want a reason to believe it will happen someday -- preferably before the Ducks win it again.

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Helene Elliott can be reached at helene.elliott@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Elliott, go to latimes.com/elliott.