Salo Leads Islanders Past Kings

A fluke goal and Tommy Salo's goaltending made the difference for the New York Islanders.

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Joe Sacco scored the only goal of the game on a bouncing 80-foot shot and Tommy Salo made 20 saves for his third shutout of the season as the Islanders beat the Los Angeles Kings 1-0 Tuesday night.

"It was a weird game," Sacco said. "We battled hard and played well defensively."

The Islanders outshot the Kings 14-1 over the first 12 minutes of the game, but rookie goalie Manny Legace stopped them all. However, he couldn't stop New York's 26th shot at 2:01 of the final period.

When Sacco fired a slap shot from center ice, the puck rose and quickly dipped about a foot in front of Legace's pads. The goalie couldn't grab the puck, which squirted between his pads and into the net.

"I was just thinking of shooting it on net," Sacco said. "I saw it dip and saw it go between his legs. I've had other games with better chances, but I'll take it. It's good to chip in, finally."

Legace said he wasn't expecting the puck to drop so suddenly.

"He shot it, and I was going to catch it in my belly," Legace said. "All of a sudden, it just dipped, and the next thing I knew, it was in the back of the net. (It was) a bad goal, and it cost us the game."

Salo, who has given up goals like that in the past, related to Legace's situation.

"That was tough for him," Salo said. "I know how it feels. I saw all the way that the puck was going to drop. It's a tough thing for goalies."

Salo earned his third shutout in eight starts this season.

"I want to win at least 30 games if I can," Salo said.

Kings coach Larry Robinson was upset with his team's effort.

"This was a huge disappointment," Robinson said. "We've got some prima donnas that are not putting out, and that's got to stop.

"We turned away from too many checks tonight. We have to fight throug checks to create (scoring) chances, and we're not committed on a whole by everybody doing that. We're supposed to have a physical team, and we were outhit and outworked by a smaller team."

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