Kings Generous to a Fault

DENVER — The Kings took their generous ways to a new level Wednesday night when they spotted the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche a five-goal lead before 16,061 at McNichols Arena.

Playing like an intimidated team, the Kings made enough mistakes and bad plays in the first 10 minutes to give Avalanche fans a reason to start asking about the franchise record for margin of victory.

The Kings, however, did not cooperate. They rallied with three consecutive second-period goals to make a game of it before losing, 6-3, in goaltender Stephane Fiset’s first road game against his former Colorado teammates.

“We knew we had to come out and play hard to have a chance to win,” said King left wing Kevin Stevens, who had a goal and an assist. “We didn’t play as bad as the score was, the bounces were just going their way. A team like the Avalanche does not have much trouble scoring goals.”

Since the All-Star break, the Kings have developed a tendency to give up goals in volume. Against New Jersey, they gave up three goals in a period; against San Jose, four; and against Dallas, five in a period.

Wednesday night, they picked the wrong time to start slowly. Colorado took advantage of its four-goal first period to improve its league-best record to 31-12-8.

Claude Lemieux and Scott Young each scored twice, Adam Deadmarsh and Mike Ricci each added a goal, and standout goalie Patrick Roy returned from a two-game absence because of a thumb injury to help the Avalanche improve to 16-4-4 at home. The win was the 335th of Roy’s career, tying him with Gump Worsley for eighth place in NHL history.

“Lately, we’ve been going through one bad stretch during games and tonight it was in the first period,” said Fiset, who faced 44 shots. “That’s when we give games away.”

Fiset, who was traded to the Kings last June, dropped to 7-18-4. He gave up goals to Deadmarsh, Young and Ricci in the first 8:54 of the game and the Kings trailed, 3-0, before Roy broke a sweat.

When they finally got scoring chances, the Kings came up empty.

The Avalanche took a 5-0 lead early in the second period with consecutive goals by Lemieux, one with less than a second remaining in the first period and the other moments after Roy had stopped a three-on-none breakaway.

Stevens, who has seven goals and three assists in his last 10 games, finally got the Kings on the scoreboard when his own rebound deflected off his skate 8:54 into the second period on a power play. Yanic Perreault then followed with a scoring blast from inside the blue line and Kai Nurminen got credit for the Kings’ third goal, his 11th, when he scored in similar fashion to Stevens with 2:52 remaining in the period.

Any hopes the Kings had for a comeback quickly ended, however, when Young scored his second goal of the game 3:26 into the third period. The Kings are 0-4-1 since the All-Star break.