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BOX SCORE
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Staples Center lights finally came on
after a 25-minute delay. The Detroit Red Wings' penalty-killing
unit kept the Los Angeles Kings' power play in the dark.
|  | | Kings' goalie Stephane Fiset survived this mishap, but Larry Murphy (not pictured) blasted in the rebound for Detroit's second goal. |
Pat Verbeek and Larry Murphy scored power-play goals 1:57 apart late in the first period and Chris Osgood earned his eighth career playoff shutout as the Red Wings beat the Kings 3-0 Wednesday night to sweep their first-round series.
"The sick part is, it's not even their big guys who made that
big a difference," Kings center Ian Laperriere said, citing Kris
Draper, Kirk Maltby, Darren McCarty and Martin Lapointe as the most
physical Red Wings in the series.
Sergei Fedorov scored an empty-netter on a breakaway with 51 seconds remaining. Some of the numerous red-and-white-clad Red
Wings fans tossed octopuses entwined with strips of red cloth onto
the ice after Fedorov's third goal of the series.
The Red Wings clinched the Western Conference series in Scotty
Bowman's 100th playoff game as coach. His playoff record of 67-33
in seven seasons with Detroit includes consecutive Stanley Cup
championships.
"When you look at the series, the difference was our penalty
killing against their power play and our power play was very
productive," Bowman said. "In the third period, they threw
everything at us. The Kings are a pretty aggressive team. They're
not easy to play against and they take a lot out of you."
Osgood made 25 saves for his second 2-0 shutout of the series.
Detroit won the first game by the same score. Stephane Fiset
stopped 25 shots.
"The penalty killing was huge and when we made mistakes there, Ozzie came up big for us," Verbeek said. "He made some saves that were outstanding. I was just really impressed by how cool and calm he was in there. He saw the puck really well."
The Kings were swept out of the playoffs for the seventh time in
franchise history and second in three years, having lost four
straight to St. Louis in 1998. They have lost 12 consecutive
playoff games since winning Game 1 of the 1993 Stanley Cup finals
against Montreal.
"Everybody looks at a four-game series as a blowout, but this wasn't a blowout at all," McCarty said. "This was a battle, each shift, game in and game out. We're close to playing exactly the way we want to play. We're competing every shift and our work ethic is there."
The start of the third period was delayed for 25 minutes when a
computer glitch knocked out the arena's halogen lights, and both
teams were sent back to their dressing rooms. The game's first
delay occurred in the second period when two plexiglass panels
broke, resulting in a seven-minute stoppage.
Los Angeles went 0-for-23 on the power play in the series -- including 0-for-7 Wednesday -- against a Detroit penalty-killing unit that tied for first in the NHL this season.
"Power play, penalty kills, specialty teams. They dominated and
we didn't," said Kings captain Rob Blake, who was limited to four shots in 31 minutes. "When your power play doesn't score at all,
the guys on the ice for those are the ones that have to be
accountable."
The Kings were done in by ill-advised penalties once again. They
lost 2-1 after two high-sticking penalties led to Detroit
power-play goals in Game 3 Monday.
"We know what we did wrong again. They were smarter all series.
They didn't retaliate like we did," Laperriere said. "Even if you
were hitting or slashing them, you didn't see any retaliation. We
took way too many penalties and it hurt us again."
With Jozef Stumpel off for crosschecking Chris Chelios, Verbeek
gave Detroit a 1-0 lead with his only goal of the series at 17:10
of the first period.
Mattias Norstrom was called for holding Fedorov's stick, which
set up Murphy's first goal of the series that put Detroit ahead 2-0
at 19:41.
A shot by Brendan Shanahan hit the post, resulting in a wild
six-player crease scramble that caught Fiset at the bottom. With
his legs blocked, Fiset wasn't able to get up and Murphy, a former
King in the playoffs for the 17th consecutive season, fired a
sharply angled shot from the left side into an open net.
"McCarty ran at me and he was sitting on me," Fiset said.
"He's right on top of you and the referee doesn't see that. That's
bad. That gave them a lot of momentum."
Murray said one of the two referees was told by the other
officials that McCarty interfered with Fiset, but the referees
didn't see it.
"To us, McCarty came in behind him and bumped him and he wasn't
pushed," Murray said. "We're not going to condemn the refereeing.
It was a real scramble in front of the net. At the time, I was not
real pleased, but we didn't score on our power play, we didn't
score any goals."
Twice the Kings had power-play chances in the second period, but
never seriously threatened when they failed to get traffic in front
of Osgood and wasted precious seconds setting up shots that went
awry.
Trailing 2-0, one of the Kings' few scoring chances in the third
came at 16:27. Osgood made a kick save of Nelson Emerson's shot,
then smothered Emerson's rebound attempt while falling on his back
to force the whistle.
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ALSO SEE
NHL Scoreboard
Detroit Clubhouse
Los Angeles Clubhouse
RECAPS
Ottawa 2
Toronto 1
Washington 3
Pittsburgh 2
Detroit 3
Los Angeles 0
Phoenix 3
Colorado 2
San Jose 3
St. Louis 2
AUDIO/VIDEO
 Pat Verbeek puts the Sergei Fedorov pass past Stephane Fiset for the goal.
avi: 746 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Mathieu Dandenault helps Jason Blake understand playoff hockey with a push into the boards.
avi: 388 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
Larry Murphy scores the power-play goal.
avi: 620 k
RealVideo: 56.6 | ISDN | T1
 Darren McCarty thought it was a tough series regardless of the sweep.
wav: 149 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
Pat Verbeek thought the Kings fought hard in the third period.
wav: 72 k
RealAudio: 14.4 | 28.8 | 56.6
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