Dumping Duchesne Sends a Message

Acknowledging a mistake, especially when it costs more than $11 million and involves waiving a player who was a teammate of the general manager who signed him last summer, is not easy. The Kings’ decision to dump defenseman Steve Duchesne was overdue, and it was an important message for a team that has improbably barged back into the Western Conference playoff scramble.

Waiving Duchesne told players if they don’t care about their performances, they won’t play. It told players they cannot become complacent and cannot expect to get more than they give on the ice or in the locker room.

It is not the last significant message that will come from the Kings’ executive suite, although weightier issues such as the return of Coach Larry Robinson won’t be resolved until this summer. The question is whether the pronouncement came too late to salvage the Kings’ fractured season.

The Kings’ 4-2 loss to the Mighty Ducks Thursday night at the Great Western Forum left them five points out of the last West playoff spot and moved the Ducks within five points of fourth place.

The Kings have played with emotion since team captain Rob Blake called a team meeting and joined alternate captains Garry Galley, Luc Robitaille and Doug Bodger to ask that Coach Larry Robinson allot playing time based on merit and stop changing the line combinations. But if their rejuvenation was exciting, it was also galling. Where was that fire and scrappiness the past five months?

The lateness of the Kings’ turnaround can be partly attributed to Blake and General Manager Dave Taylor still learning on the job. Anointing a team’s best player its captain doesn’t guarantee he will be a leader. He must act from the heart, and Blake has found an emotional wellspring his teammates respond to. Taylor the general manager must be judged on different standards than Taylor the diligent player. Greatness on the ice does not automatically translate to the front office--or behind the bench. Taylor’s signings of Galley and Duchesne seem to have been influenced more by sentiment than reason, and Taylor had to hurt a friend to learn he must be dispassionate in his decisions.

The Kings are not a good team. They have too many players with marginal skill and too many old legs. Making the playoffs will not make this season a success, and it may even delude them into thinking they’re good enough not to make any changes. But King President Tim Leiweke doesn’t think that will be the case.

“You never, ever have satisfaction in not reaching the playoffs. There’s nothing to gain in our world by not making the playoffs,” Leiweke said. “We can’t let the playoffs deceive us, but we need to make the playoffs.

“I said before we needed guys in our organization looking in the mirror and they obviously did and a number of guys came out fighting and scratching. But we dug ourselves a huge ditch.”

While the Kings try to turn desperation into points and hope for help from teams above them, the Ducks have the luxury of worrying merely if they’re going to catch the Coyotes and have home-ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

The Kings are unabashed scoreboard watchers, but Duck goalie Guy Hebert said he hasn’t pored over the standings for a few weeks. However, that doesn’t mean he or the Ducks think they can coast.

“You know that as soon as you lose a game, another team is right in your rear view mirror. Nobody here is resting on their laurels,” said Hebert, who had 37 saves Thursday night. “We went through a great stretch and did ourselves a favor and now we hold our destiny in our own hands. Take a look at our last 14 games, and you see the computer isn’t generous to us. . . . If we beat the LAs, Calgarys and St. Louis, those are points they’re not going to make up on somebody else.”

The Ducks had closed the gap between themselves and Phoenix to two points, but the Coyotes have stopped self-destructing long enough to assemble a 2-0-2 streak and pad their lead to five points.

The Ducks must also watch out for the Blues, who trail them by four points since Grant Fuhr and Chris Pronger recovered from injuries. The Ducks have 13 games left, six at home and seven on the road, but only five of their opponents are above .500.

“It’s all about momentum. That’s why when you’re hot, all you want to do is keep playing,” Duck right wing Teemu Selanne said. “When you’re struggling, you have to find a way to stop struggling.”

The Kings, who are even in games with the Flames, have 14 games left to end their struggles. Five games are at home and nine on the road. Eight of their opponents are above .500.

“I love what Calgary has done and the chemistry on their team,” Leiweke said, referring to the Flames’ unity and success since trading team scoring leader Theo Fleury to Colorado Feb. 28. “I saw them go down the hallway when they were here and it was unbelievable how great their chemistry was. I’m glad to see a spark in our locker room now.”

That spark could have been a fire if it had been ignited earlier. More’s the pity Blake and Taylor waited so long to make their moves.