KINGS CAN'T MAKE THINGS EASY L.A. BLOWS A QUICK START, THEN RALLIES FOR VICTORY KINGS 4, DUCKS 3 (SO).

Byline: Rich Hammond Staff Writer

ANAHEIM - Swift skating. Crisp passing. Strong checking. An active power play. In the first period Friday, the Kings did so many things right, so many of the things that have failed them in recent games.

And what did it all mean? Well, in the end, probably not enough as it should have.

Given the way things have been going for the Kings of late, it hardly seemed surprising that their great start and early two-goal lead wouldn't be enough to ensure an easy victory.

The Kings rallied from a third-period deficit to force overtime, then got shootout goals from Pavol Demitra and Alexander Frolov to beat the Mighty Ducks 4-3 at the Pond.

The Kings led 2-0 after 16 minutes, on goals by Derek Armstrong and Dustin Brown, but the Ducks regained some momentum with a goal by Petr Sykora in the final minute of the first period.

The second period belonged to the Ducks, who scored twice to take the lead, but Petr Kanko's goal, in his NHL debut, tied the score 5:26 into the third period.

It was an interesting day for the Kings, who learned that popular assistant captain Luc Robitaille, who has struggled throughout this season, would be a healthy scratch for Friday's game.

That news no doubt made the Kings a bit more emotional than usual, and it showed in an inspired first period as they took the physical play to the Mighty Ducks, something they hadn't done much of late.

The Ducks entered the game with wins in five of their past six home games, but goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere looked a bit shaky in the first period, and the Kings took advantage twice early.

The Kings' power play had converted on just four of its past 32 chances over the previous five games and had dropped to 25th in the league in efficiency, but the Kings got two first-period power-play goals.

A shot from the point by Mattias Norstrom slipped behind Giguere and Armstrong knocked the puck off the skate of Ruslan Salei and into the net at the 7:06 mark for a 1-0 Kings lead.

The Kings continued to dominate the flow of action and scored again with 4:12 remaining in the period, when Brown stationed himself in front of the net and knocked in Eric Belanger's rebound.

At one point in the first period, the Kings had outshot the Ducks 15-4, and that was great news, especially given the way things have been going for the Kings' goaltenders of late.

Mathieu Garon, Friday's starter, has performed better than Jason LaBarbera of late, but Friday's game started a stretch in which the Kings will play five games, four on the road, in eight days.

``At this point, what we have is what we have,'' Kings coach Andy Murray said. ``Our focus right now is to get Jason's game back to where we want it. We need to make the guys we've got look as good as we possibly can. The two guys we've got have to find a way to get the job done.''

One hardly could blame Garon, however, for the Ducks' comeback. Once the Ducks got going, the Kings seemed powerless to do much about it for long stretches of the second period.

With the Ducks on the power play late in the first period, Sykora executed a give-and-go move and scored from close range to make the score 2-1. The Ducks duplicated that goal midway through the second period when Joffrey Lupul scored from close range on the power play for a 3-2 Ducks lead.

In between, Todd Marchant tied the score on a slap shot that was deflected into the net by two Kings.

Rich Hammond, [phone]

rich.hammond(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

The Kings' Dustin Brown, second from right, is congratulated by teammates after scoring a goal in the first period against the Mighty Ducks on Friday night.

Matt A. Brown/Associated Press