NO JUICE

It was near the end of the first period Thursday night, and the voice of the people came thundering down from up near the rafters:

“We decline the penalty.”

The critic had a firm grasp on the mathematics at work. The Kings were on the power play. By the time Tom Fitzgerald of the Nashville Predators left the penalty box, another man advantage had slid by with the Kings getting no advantage at all.

Again.

The numbers game:

* Zero for their last 14 power plays.

* One for their last 33.

* Two for their last 50.

* More short-handed goals, six, than power-play goals, five.

* Last in power-play goals and efficiency in the NHL.

Each digit is a punch in the stomach of Steve Duchesne, who came back to town from St. Louis with a rep: He’s an electrician, a guy who turns on the power.

The Kings are paying the bill, $3.75 million a season.

So where’s the juice?

“[Coach Larry Robinson has] talked to me and said, ‘Don’t try to do it all yourself,’ ” Duchesne says. “But you get it in your head that you want to do it and next thing you know, you’re trying to push too much.”

*

Duch has the puck with an open shot 10 feet from the net and he passes to [Vladimir] Tsyplakov. You call that good judgment?

--Robinson, after Tuesday’s loss at Calgary

It’s a sign that patience is wearing when Robinson, a former teammate and a reason Duchesne signed a free-agent contract with the Kings in July, stops making excuses for him.

“I think I might have put more pressure on him when I talked before the season of his taking care of our power play,” the coach said a week ago.

And, “I’m sure he reads the papers, the same as everybody else, and it’s been written that we brought him here for the power play. That’s not the reason why we got him.”

Perhaps, but much was made of Duchesne’s five goals and 24 assists on the power play with the St. Louis Blues last season, and of the Kings going one for 29 on the power play while being swept by the Blues in the first round of the playoffs.

The Kings were 15th in the NHL in power-play efficiency last season, and Duchesne was going to make that better.

Right now, 15th on the power play looks pretty good.

He has scored only one goal and has two assists, only one on the power play.

And, yes, Duchesne takes it personally.

Not outwardly. For the public he puts on a happy face.

“My game is not to score 50 goals,” he says. “I pass the puck around on the power play, and I’m passing it around really nicely and it’s not going in[to the net]. Obviously, it’s frustrating, but I feel like I’m playing really well.”

But for teammates, there was a locker-room apology after a recent game, after another pointless evening, albeit in a victory.

“He’s a very proud individual,” Robinson says. “I think I can kind of relate to that. When I came over from Montreal during the [Wayne] Gretzky era, I was frustrated because I wasn’t playing very well myself. One of the reasons was that I was trying to change my game.

“A lot of times as a player, you don’t see that and you think, ‘I’ve lost it,’ or whatever. Once you go back to playing the way you’ve always played, things seem to work for you.”

*

It’s more that he has to make an adjustment to us than we have to make an adjustment to him.

--Robinson, before Thursday’s loss to Nashville

There is a collision of styles, and perhaps of wills, at work here.

“Guys have got to get used to a defenseman going [to the net] in the play,” Duchesne says. “I know my game. I’ve been playing for 13 years. I know what I’m supposed to do.”

But Robinson wants Duchesne to distribute the puck after it has been set up for an outside shot.

Robinson also wants a couple of Kings muscling around the goal to tip it in, using their size. They are, after all, the NHL’s biggest team.

“Our power play works when we keep it simple,” he says.

But that’s foreign to Duchesne, whose passing skills sometimes approach wizardry.

And sometimes approach weirdness.

“I can’t get inside his head,” Robinson says. “I know he makes a lot of easy plays difficult. When you’re that talented, the easy play just seems too easy and maybe you’re not doing the right thing.”

Things have never seemed too easy for Duchesne, who has been among the scoring leaders for defensemen for most of his career, yet still sees himself as an overachiever.

“I’ve always been hard on myself,” he admits. “I was never drafted, so I’ve always wanted to work hard and show my stuff.”

Robinson was looking for some of that stuff the other night in Calgary when he assigned Philippe Boucher to bring the puck into the offensive zone, then give it to Duchesne to work a little magic.

Duchesne had Al MacInnis to carry the puck in St. Louis, Robinson said. Maybe that was an answer.

Zero for seven in power plays in the next two games said it wasn’t.

“In St. Louis, we struggled for a while and couldn’t get anything going,” Duchesne says. “And then we started doing things individually, and it hurt us. And then we started doing things with five guys on the ice, and it started working.

“It’s nothing physical. It’s in your head. Your head screws with you and you start thinking too much instead of reacting, and it happens.”

Maybe what has to happen is that he has to bury the Blues.

“We don’t have the same type of team as St. Louis,” Robinson says.

“I think he’s [going to the net] a little more here than he did there. I think he had the style of players there to do it. . . .

“We have as good a players as that, but we don’t have players with that style. Ours is a more physical game--jump on the other team’s mistakes. . . .

“I think his game will be better with patience. You can have success out there, but success comes with team success.”

And right now there is no success. It rankles. The Kings are on a 1-4-1 skid. The natives are getting restless.

And the guy taking the heat is only one of five attackers on the ice at the time.

*

I don’t think it’s as much we haven’t been adjusting to Steve as Steve hasn’t adjusted to us. He’s trying to create opportunities when they’re not there. I think he’s kind of taken it a little too personally.

--Robinson, before Monday’s victory at Vancouver

Duchesne says he doesn’t take it personally, then does anyway.

“Maybe in the back of my mind, I am taking the blame,” he says. “You want to do well. I’m here, obviously, to get some points on the board and get the power play going. It’s frustrating because I want to do well.”

There’s support aplenty, but after a while it becomes sympathetic, nothing anybody really wants.

“I think he’s putting a bit of pressure on himself,” says teammate Sean O’Donnell. “We’ve seen some of the moves that he’s made on the power play, and some of the things that he’s capable of doing, and it’s going to come around.

“We’re not worried about him.”

He worries enough himself. It’s a heavy burden, and he’s bearing it because he’s the electric man.

And right now, there’s a power failure.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Power Outage

The Kings’ power play is the worst in the NHL, but executed properly Luc Robataille becomes the principal shooter and key to creating space for other shooters.

Power Play Line

15: Josef Stumpel

27: Glen Murray

20: Luc Robitaille

28: Steve Duchesne

43: Philippe Boucher

Power Play Efficiency

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Team Opportunities Goals Pct. Pittsburgh 68 16 23.5% Boston 89 19 21.3% Dallas 76 16 21.1% Vancouver 64 13 20.3% New Jersey 43 8 18.6% Edmonton 92 17 18.5% Detroit 83 15 18.1% St. Louis 63 11 17.5% New York Islanders 65 11 16.9% Calgary 72 12 16.7% Philadelphia 76 12 15.8% Montreal 71 11 15.5% Colorado 74 11 14.9% Ottawa 69 10 14.5% New York Rangers 69 10 14.5% Mighty Ducks 71 10 14.1% Tampa Bay 75 10 13.3% San Jose 76 10 13.2% Chicago 76 10 13.2% Washington 61 8 13.1% Buffalo 71 9 12.7% Florida 81 10 12.3% Nashville 68 7 10.3% Phoenix 49 5 10.2% Toronto 82 8 9.8% Carolina 80 6 7.5% Kings 69 5 7.2% Totals 1,933 290 15%

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