[0] KINGS GRIND OUT WIN IN OT : KINGS 2 BOSTON 1.

Byline: Roger Phillips

It appeared the night was destined to end in a stalemate, rookies providing what little offense there had been in a defensive struggle.

Then, with 2:13 to play in overtime, the Kings got the chance they needed, a rare outnumbered rush against the miserly Boston Bruins. Luc Robitaille thought about passing, then wound up and fired, a 40-foot blast that turned on the red light and gave the Kings a 2-1 victory in their home opener Friday night before a sellout crowd of 16,005 at the Forum.

Robitaille almost decided to pass the puck. But when he looked around, no one was in as good a position to shoot the puck as he was.

``I thought to myself, `Shoot it,' '' Robitaille said after scoring his second goal this season and the 480th of his NHL career. ``I tried to pick the corner. Maybe he was looking for me to make a play.''

``I was a little surprised he shot it,'' said Boston goalie Byron Dafoe, adding that he was screened by teammate Grant Ledyard. ``He didn't have that good an angle. He made a pretty good shot.''

The goal lifted the Kings to 2-1 and dropped the Bruins, two games into a seven-game trip, to 2-1-1. Stephane Fiset stopped 22 shots for the Kings, who also got a key save in the closing minutes when - with Fiset out of position - defenseman Steve Duchesne blocked a shot by Sergei Samsonov.

Until Robitaille's goal, the only players to score were a pair of first-year players with six games of NHL experience between them. The Kings' 20-year-old Josh Green scored his first NHL goal in the first period, and 25-year-old Finnish rookie Antti Laaksonen responded in the second.

The Bruins entered the game with a two-game shutout streak and hadn't allowed a goal in the previous 151 minutes, 29 seconds. Dafoe had started all three games for Boston, posting an absurdly-low 0.97 goals-against average while stopping 91 of 94 shots.

But the streak ended 10:50 into the game, with the Kings on a power play after Bruins defenseman Don Sweeney was sent off for holding Robitaille at 9:30.

The play leading to the goal began with a strong effort by Yanic Perreault along the left boards to keep the puck in Boston's zone. Perreault got the puck to Robitaille, who passed the puck to Doug Bodger at the blue line. Bodger fired a 59-footer at Dafoe, who made the save with his right leg. Green, left all alone by the Bruins to the right of Dafoe, pounced on the rebound and slipped it into a virtually empty net.

``I was thinking to myself, `I better not miss this,' '' said Green, who received extensive power-play time for the first time. ``I was fortunate the puck came right to me. I was happy to put it away.''

Six minutes into the second period, it appeared the Bruins had tied the score on a power play, when Rob DiMaio deflected a blue-line shot by Darren Van Impe past Fiset.

But a review of the videotape revealed that just before the puck entered the net, Boston forward Chris Taylor, while tangled with Rob Blake, had backed his right foot into the crease, and the goal was disallowed.

The disallowed goal was the third involving the Kings in the last two games. In their 4-2 loss at Vancouver four days earlier, two Kings goals were disallowed, including a late controversial call that cost them a tying goal.

Given the reprieve, the Kings continued to play solid defense but mustered little in the way of an attack of their own.

Finally, though, the Bruins broke through, with a goal off a faceoff to the right of Fiset. A quick shot from the left circle by Laaksonen beat Fiset, who appeared to be screened by teammate Philippe Boucher and Boston's Ken Baumgartner, an ex-King.

With the goal, the Bruins seized the momentum, almost taking the lead one minute later when Fiset was caught out of position with Jason Allison alone in front with the puck. Duchesne made the goal-saving play, knocking the net off its moorings for a comparatively harmless delay-of-game penalty.

It almost wasn't so harmless, however, because defenseman Sean O'Donnell's subsequent and needless roughing penalty with 1:01 left in the period put his team two men short for 32 seconds, a crisis the Kings were able to survive.

Victory aside, Kings coach Larry Robinson was not overjoyed. In three games, his team has scored six goals, all by the line of Robitaille, Green and Yanic Perreault. Robinson said he felt Boston outworked the Kings and added that his team was fortunate to win the game.

``You've got to work to score goals,'' Robinson said. ``The best example is to look at (Boston). They don't have a lot of superstars. But they probably deserved a better fate. Hopefully, we can learn from their work ethic.''

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Photo

Photo: (Color) Kings goalie Stephane Fiset keeps the puck in view as teammate Jozef Stumpel blocks out Boston's Dmitri Khristich.

David Crane/Daily News