Kings’ Crime Almost Perfect

BOSTON — It was the biggest heist in this town since the Brinks job in 1950.

“I didn’t say anything to the team after the game,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “You don’t go and pat them on the back for playing 20 minutes of hockey.”

The 20 minutes featured a rally from a three-goal deficit that included two goals by Glen Murray--one with 21 seconds to play--and were enough for the Kings to get, not earn, a 4-4 tie with the Boston Bruins and steal a point on the ol’ playoff trail, which is no testimony to justice.

“This is like ‘Groundhog Day,’ ” Bruin Coach Pat Burns moaned. “I keep seeing this over and over.”

Boston has lost four games and tied three by blowing third-period leads, but not like this.

“I won’t tell you what I said to them after the second period,” Murray said. “Ask them.”

OK.

“He challenged everybody in the dressing room and he had a reason,” defenseman Garry Galley said. “It’s not something a coach wants to do too often . . . but I’m glad he did. He challenged us not to win the game, but to be the kind of team we can be, to set the standard we can use [tonight] in Atlanta.”

The starting point was a 4-1 deficit, the result of two goals by Steve Heinze and one each by Andre Savage and Brian Rolston.

It also was the result of the Kings losing pucks, losing scraps in the corners and being embarrassingly outshot, outhustled and outhit. The only thing worse than the first period, in which they were outshot, 17-4, was the second, in which they gave up three goals.

“I’m not sure yet if we were playing that well or they weren’t playing well,” Burns said.

He was the only one among the announced 17,565 in FleetCenter who was in doubt.

“I wasn’t mad at [goalie] Stephane Fiset at all,” said Andy Murray, who pulled Fiset in favor of Jamie Storr, who shut out the Bruins in an eight-save third period and two-save overtime.

“In fact, I actually used [Fiset] as an example. He kept us in the game in the first period. I said, ‘Here’s a guy who kept us in the game [Saturday] and gave us a chance to win in Philadelphia [in overtime Thursday night], and this is how you dump on him? This is how you be a good teammate?’ ”

Uh, no.

This is how:

* You get a power-play goal by Glen Murray 48 seconds into the third period.

“That helped,” said Storr, who lauded Fiset and said Andy Murray probably was looking for “a change of pace” when he made the goalie switch.

“But it only made it 4-2. Then it was like, ‘OK, let’s go get another one.’ ”

* You get a back-handed goal by Bob Corkum, who won the puck behind the net and sent it out front, where Sean O’Donnell whiffed on the shot. Corkum won the puck again and shot it over goalie John Grahame and Bruin defenseman Mattias Timander, who were tangled up in front of the net.

“When it’s 4-3, that’s when you feel like you’re back in it,” said Storr, who kept the Kings close by somehow separating a Sergei Samsonov shot from a tangle of Bryan Smolinski and the Bruins’ Eric Nickulas at his feet.

Still, there was one more hill to climb, and that was accomplished with Storr on the bench for an extra attacker with 21 seconds to play.

Andy Murray had called a timeout, extolled the Kings to run the same six-attacker play they have been using since training camp in September and then watched Jozef Stumpel send a puck from the side boards to Glen Murray, in front of Grahame. Murray, skating across the net, poked the puck past the Boston goalie for a 4-4 tie.

A goal in overtime, even when the first 1:54 of it was conducted on a King power play, was a bit much to ask. Greed has its limits, and for the second game in a row, the Kings had pulled out at least a point from a game in which they trailed going into the final period.

There was no object lesson here.

“This is Game 75,” Murray said. “It tells me that we shouldn’t have been down, 4-1.”

It’s similar to what he told the Kings during the second intermission Saturday afternoon.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

PLAYOFF RACE

The race for final four of eight Western Conference playoff spots (G=Games left):

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No. Team Pts. G 5. KINGS 84 7 6. San Jose 80 7 7. Edmonton 80 7 8. Phoenix 79 8 9. Vancouver 78 6 10. DUCKS 76 6 11. Calgary 74 6

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