KINGS PUT UP A FIGHT VS. DUCKS BUT ANAHEIM ENDS UP WINNING IN SO DUCKS 3, KINGS 2 (SO).

Byline: RICH HAMMOND 

Staff Writer

In one of those what-was-he-thinking moments, the Kings' Lubomir Visnovsky, listed - generously - at 5-foot-10 and 188 pounds, went charging after Travis Moen, the Ducks' 6-2, 216-pound enforcer.

After some initial clutching, pushing and yelling, Moen dumped Visnovsky to the ground with a shove, and could there have been a better metaphor for the way the Kings' and Ducks' seasons have gone?

The Ducks have spent the entire season near the top of the Western Conference standings while the Kings have sunk to the bottom, but the Kings showed Saturday that they still have some fight left in them.

In the latest round of a cross-town battle often described as tepid, the Kings and Ducks played the roles of bickering neighbors and wore a path to the penalty box. Between scrums, they played some entertaining hockey and the game was tied 2-2 after three periods in front of 18,118 at Staples Center.

Chris Kunitz's goal, 5:48 into the third period, gave the Ducks the lead. But Anze Kopitar tied the score with 5:14 left.

Corey Perry scored in the fifth round of the shootout to give the Ducks the win, after Teemu Selanne and Michael Cammalleri traded goals in the second round.

A contentious first period included just one goal - Alexander Frolov's deflection with eight seconds left - but plenty of action, including one fight, three misconduct penalties and 56 penalty minutes.

Things settled down a bit after that, and Teemu Selanne tied the game 3:22 into the second period. The goal was Selanne's 300th as a Duck, which tied the franchise record set by Paul Kariya.

The teams hadn't met since Dec. 3, and there wasn't any obvious animosity, but given the way things have been going for both teams of late, perhaps the chippy play shouldn't have been a big surprise.

Neither team entered Saturday's cross-town matchup in much of a sunny mood, though.

The Kings have long since settled into last place in the conference and the Ducks, after a brilliant two-month burst to start the season, have slipped a bit and had lost seven of their previous 11 games.

In fact, the Kings have had a better February than the Ducks. It took the Kings four months to find consistent goaltending, but the emergence of Sean Burke and Mathieu Garon has helped greatly. During their recent five-game East Coast swing, the Kings recorded at least one point in four games.

"You can say all the right things in the (dressing) room and talk about being positive, but until you win, it doesn't matter," Kings team captain Mattias Norstrom said before the game. "We can do all the right things out there and have meetings ... but the only way to learn how to win is by winning.

"It's no secret that if you're going to win in this league, you have to have good goaltending."

Burke, who has a stellar 2.16 goals-against average since being claimed off waivers by the Kings, got the night off as the Kings turned to Garon, who looked to get back on track.

Garon, who missed nine games last month with a broken finger, had made only one start since his return, when he allowed four goals in a loss to Washington, but Garon fared better against the Ducks.

Through two periods, Garon stopped 17 of 18 shots. Garon's only mistake came on the power play, when Selanne slapped in a rebound on a shot by Dustin Penner to tie the game in the second period.

Frolov had given the Kings the lead with his 10th goal in his last 13 games, at the end of a rough-and-tumble first period that featured pushing and shoving after almost every whistle.

The chippy play reached a peak nine minutes into the period, when equipment went flying in the Kings' zone and a handful of shoving matches broke out. Twenty-four penalties minutes were issued, including misconduct penalties to the Kings' Aaron Miller and the Ducks' Samuel Pahlsson.

Ducks goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who allowed four goals against Phoenix on Thursday, rebounded nicely, held up under early pressure and stopped 21 of 22 shots through two periods.

The Kings were shorthanded as Norstrom left the game in the first period and didn't return. Norstrom took four shifts in the first 10 minutes of the first period, but then missed the entire second period.

The Kings announced that Norstrom had left the game with an undisclosed lower-body injury.

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Photo:

The Kings' Dustin Brown, left, is hit in the face by the Ducks' Chris Pronger during Saturday's game.

Edna T. Simpson/Daily News

Box:

KINGS vs. DUCKS

-- Associated Press