KINGS GET SOME MOMENTUM RALLY IN THIRD BEATS COLORADO KINGS 5, COLORADO 4.

Byline: RICH HAMMOND  Staff Writer

Remember those playoff battles of 2001 and 2002, the series in which the Kings and Colorado Avalanche pushed each other to the brink and played some of the most intense hockey ever seen in Los Angeles?

Ziggy Palffy vs. Patrick Roy. Jason Allison vs. Rob Blake. Bob Hartley vs. Andy Murray, the latter lunging over the glass partition to yell at his coaching counterpart. Standing-room only crowds.

By contrast, Saturday night's game had all the significance of a junior-high spitball fight, but the Kings and Avalanche, both desperate for positive momentum, put on a highly entertaining game.

Craig Conroy's third-period goal gave the Kings a 5-4 victory in front of an announced crowd of 17,079 at Staples Center.

The Kings, who 48 hours earlier checked themselves for any signs of life, rallied from deficits of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 and scored three third-period goals to earn a huge victory, at least from a mental standpoint.

``That was huge,'' Conroy said. ``We just had to stay the course and stay with the system. This is a win and now we have to build. This was huge, to beat a team ahead of us. It's a huge emotional win.''

After Thursday's dreadful loss to Nashville, the Kings held a 30-minute, players-only meeting in which they attempted to salvage something from this season of low expectations and worse results.

It didn't start so well, as Kings goalie Dan Cloutier allowed twogoals in the first seven minutes, but the Kings showed unusual fortitude and rallied to beat a playoff-caliber team, a notable achievement.

``We had a commitment out there,'' said Michael Cammalleri, who scored two goals. ``We had to work hard and support each other regardless of the score. It's hard, when you're down a couple goals, not to deviate from the system, but we were able to do that tonight.''

Scott Thornton tied the score 4-4 with 9:38 remaining when he beat Colorado goalie Jose Theodore, who looked even shakier than the Kings' much-maligned Cloutier.

With 6:22 left, Conroy took two whacks at a rebound right in front of Theodore and pushed the puck across the line, and the Kings held on for the victory despite a late power play by the Avalanche.

The Kings and Avalanche are both outside the Western Conference playoff picture, and it's not hard to see why, given the questionable goaltending both teams received Saturday night.

Cloutier allowed at least fourgoals for the seventh time in his past 10 games but made 26 saves and won for the second time in three starts. Theodore stopped 33 of 38 shots.

The loss was yet another low point for the Avalanche, which has had plenty of them this season. Times are tough for the Avalanche, which had been considered a model NHL franchise for a decade.

Colorado, which won Stanley Cup championships in 1996 -- under current Kings coach Marc Crawford -- and 2001, now resides at the bottom of the competitive Northwest Division.

But the Avalanche was coming off an impressive victory over San Jose and continued its strong play in the first period.

Antti Laaksonen scored 3:25 into the game, on Colorado's second shot. Joe Sakic scored at the seven-minute mark as Cloutier endured yet another rough start.

Leave it to Sean Avery to perfectly sum up the first period. At the 9:52 mark, Avery and longtime nemesis Ian Laperriere squared off at center ice in a spirited fight. Any spark the Kings might have picked up was voided when Avery was given a game-misconduct penalty for not having his jersey tied down.

NHL rule 47.13 calls for an automatic game misconduct if a player's jersey is not strapped to his pants and it is removed during a fight. That rule sent Avery to the locker room for the rest of the night.

The Kings failed on threepower-play chances in the final nine minutes of the period, but their effort carried over to the second, and they needed just seven minutes to tie the score 2-2.

At the 4:27 mark, Tom Kostopoulos took a close-range shot that trickled past goalie Jose Theodore, and at the 7:04 mark Cammalleri tied the game with a slap shot from the middle of the left faceoff circle.

``Our execution wasn't great in the first period,'' Crawford said, ``but it got better. It's no accident that our execution got better as our work ethic got better.''

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Photo:

The Kings' Sean Avery, left, gets into a fight with Colorado's Ian Laperriere -- a former King.

Edna T. Simpson/Daily News