Kings Ground Ducks In OT

It had been 10 years since the Los Angeles Kings had this successful a regular season and they finished it with a flourish Sunday, using Glen Murray's overtime power play goal to defeat rival Anaheim 4-3.

"We wanted to be playing good hockey going into the playoffs and to be confident and this game helped," said Murray, who scored his 29th goal of the season.

Marko Tuomainen, Bob Corkum and Rob Blake also scored for the Kings, who finished the campaign with a 39-31-12 record and 94 points under rookie head coach Andy Murray - 25 points more than they had last season under Larry Robinson.

The team hasn't done this well since 1990-91, when it had 102 points in Blake's first full NHL campaign and Wayne Gretzky's third season with the club.

Los Angeles placed fifth in the conference standings - following an 11th-place finish last year - and earned a playoff berth for just the second time since losing to Montreal in the 1993 Stanley Cup finals. The Kings will open their first-round series at Detroit, and will be looking for their first postseason victory since Game 1 of the '93 finals.

"Fortunately, Anaheim and Detroit play a similar game, with up-tempo forwards. So it was a good test for us," Andy Murray said.

Glen Murray, who also scored 29 goals in 1997-98 before injuries limited him to 61 games last season, recorded his second game-winner after Ducks defenseman Oleg Tverdovsky was sent off for high-sticking Craig Johnson. He got the puck from Jozef Stumpel, carried it into the Anaheim zone and beat Guy Hebert through the pads with a long slapshot.

Teemu Selanne's second goal of the game and 33rd of the season tied the score on a power play midway through the third period and Anaheim teammate Paul Kariya scored his 42nd goal.

It was the first time Kariya and Selanne scored goals in the same game in their last 18 appearances together since Jan. 31 at Boston, when they did it for the fifth consecutive time. That streak was preceded by a 30-game stretch in which they failed to score in the same game.

Despite the efforts of their two All-Stars, the Ducks fell one victory short of matching last season's total of 35 and finishing at the .500 mark for the third time in team's seven-year history.

"We're a .500 team, and that's the mentality we've had all year," Kariya said.

The two Southern California rivals have never gone to the playoffs in the same season since Anaheim entered the league in 1993-94. Anaheim had only four fewer wins and four fewer losses than the Kings but missed the playoffs for the second time in Craig Hartsburg's two seasons as head coach, after going 7-8-4 in their final 19 games.

"It's my role to make sure that every player understands that missing the playoffs is unacceptable," Hartsburg said. "Tomorrow we'll talk about what needs to be fixed, what needs to be changed, and what needs to be focused on."

One thing that plagued the Ducks was their mediocre start. They never won more than two consecutive games until a season-best four-game streak in mid-December, The Kings, revitalized by a new arena and an entirely new coaching staff, were 12-4-4 in their first 20 games. That stretch was vital because it helped cushion them during an injury-plagued 1-9-2 slide.

"We had a great start this season, which helped us a lot," Glen Murray said. "At the beginning of the season, some teams think points aren't that important."

Kings left wing Luc Robitaille sat out the game to rest up for the playoffs. Robitaille, who missed 10 games in November because of a broken foot, was the Kings' leading scorer with 74 points for the second consecutive season. He finished with 36 goals, three fewer than last season.

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