LOS ANGELES -- A little over ten days ago, when the Los Angeles Kings left town for a grueling five-game road trip, many who follow the team, along with hockey pundits just about everywhere, thought they would be lucky to win one game on the trip.

But after their longest road trip of the season, some are scratching their heads and thinking, "who are those guys and what did they do with the Los Angeles Kings?"

Indeed, the Kings, or whoever those guys who have been wearing their jerseys are, earned a 2-1-2 record on the trip that ended on Tuesday with a hard-fought 2-1 loss at Carolina.

The Kings began the trip on a high note, bombing the Florida Panthers, 7-0, on February 3.

In that game, 40-year-old Kings goaltender Sean Burke earned the 38th shutout of his National Hockey League career, and his first in the NHL since April 8, 2006, when he shutout the Pittsburgh Penguins while he played for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

After a 3-2 shootout loss at Tampa Bay on February 6 and a 4-3 overtime loss at Washington on February 8, the Kings surprised many by handing a decisive 4-1 defeat to the Nashville Predators on February 10.

At the time, the Preds were on top of the NHL standings--the lowly Kings had somehow whipped what was arguably the NHL's best team.

"We knew we had to come out strong and we did," Kings rookie sensation Anze Kopitar told the Associated Press. "Our last game here, we got beat pretty bad. We paid attention to details. We executed and that brought the success in this game."

The Kings wound up earning a more-than-respectable six out of a possible ten points in the standings on the road trip--they earned points in four of the five games, a feat virtually no one thought possible.

Clearly, what was slated to be another dismal road swing for the NHL's worst road team heading into the trip was instead a success and perhaps a confidence-builder heading into the home stretch.

ARMSTRONG REWARDED WITH TWO-YEAR DEAL

Center Derek Armstrong, who has never been a high-scoring forward but has stood out as one of the hardest-working players for the Kings this season, was rewarded for his efforts on February 14 with a two- year contract extension.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal is rumored to be worth $3 million.

Armstrong would have become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.

Armstrong, 33, has nine goals and 30 assists for 39 points in 54 games this season. His 30 assists are a new career-high, ranking him fifth on the team.

Most notably, Armstrong leads the team in plus/minus with a +16 rating--only Armstrong and center Michael Cammalleri (+6) are in the plus column for the Kings.

"Derek is a good player and he's a really good teammate," Kings President/General Manager Dean Lombardi told The Canadian Press. "It's nice to have got this done. Obviously, if we hadn't, we would have been in a situation where we would have to look at [a trade] because of the asset. But this is guy we wanted to keep."

IT ONLY TOOK 123 GAMES

123 NHL regular season games.

That is how many games it took seldom-used Kings defenseman Mike Weaver to score his first NHL goal.

On February 6 at Tampa, Weaver scored at 1:13 of the third period to give the Kings a lift after trailing the Lightning 2-0 after two periods.

Weaver's goal sparked a comeback by the Kings, who tied the game, 2-2, only to see the Lightning win the game in the shootout.

"It's about time," Weaver told the Associated Press about the goal.

Weaver has played in just fifteen games for the Kings this season, scoring a goal and adding three assists for four points.

SECOND WIND FOR KOPITAR

Kopitar, who has consistently been the Kings' best player all season long, was struggling with his game prior to the current road trip.

In the 15 games prior to heading out on the road on February 3, Kopitar had scored just two goals, and in seven of those games, he had no points at all.

As we reported last week, Kings head coach Marc Crawford said before the road trip that he thought Kopitar was probably fatigued.

One would think that the grueling travel schedule of a five-game Eastern road swing would just add to his fatigue, but Kopitar looked rested and very strong in the five games on the road, scoring three goals while adding two assists for five points.

To be sure, Kopitar did it all for the Kings on their road swing. "Struggling" does not seem to be in his vocabulary, or his game, at all right now.

BURKE MELTING HIS CREASE

Since the Kings acquired him on January 18, veteran goaltender Sean Burke has been so hot, the ice in his crease melts into a small pond of runny blue slush.

Of course, that is an exaggeration, but the 40-year-old netminder has been hot enough to melt ice with his stellar play, and this comes after the Tampa Bay Lightning gave up on him last season and heading into this year as well.

Indeed, Burke was languishing in the minors and his NHL career seemed to be gasping its last breaths when the Kings claimed him off of re- entry waivers. But in nine games with the Kings, Burke's numbers are outstanding. He has a 3-3-2 record with an impressive 2.16 goals- against average, an eye-opening .932 save percentage and one shutout.

With Burke giving the Kings the consistent, solid goaltending they lacked until he arrived on the scene, the Kings are considerably better on defense and in particular, on the penalty-kill.

"We haven't had a lot of problems scoring goals this year," Kings head coach Marc Crawford told the Associated Press. "It's been keeping them out that's been the biggest problem."

"Sean's come in and taken that burden away from us and it has given us a better feel for our team."

ADDITION BY SUBTRACTION?

The fact that the Kings have managed to earn points in four of the five games played on the road trip came after they dealt veteran forwards Craig Conroy (Calgary Flames) and Sean Avery (New York Rangers).

In return, the Kings got draft picks, young prospects and two NHL players, centers Jamie Lundmark and Jason Ward.

Lundmark and Ward are third/fourth-line players and were likely taken off of the hands of the Flames and Rangers to help them clear salary cap space so that they could take on the salaries of Conroy and Avery.

But given Conroy's lack of production all season long for the Kings and Avery's struggles before he was traded (he had not contributed a point in eleven games before the road trip began), could it be that the Kings are getting more out of Lundmark and Ward than they were from Conroy and Avery?

Since he joined the Kings, Lundmark has two goals and an assist with four penalty minutes in six games.

In four games with the Kings, Ward has one assist and two penalty minutes.

It is obviously too early to tell, but all indications from the current road trip are pointing in that direction--the Kings do indeed look like a better team without Conroy and Avery, at least for now.

Gann Matsuda is a Los Angeles native and has followed the Los Angeles Kings since 1973. His days covering the Kings began in the mid-80's when he wrote game stories and news and notes pieces on various online services (GEnie, National Videotex Network and eWorld), before moving to e-mail lists and the World Wide Web. He has been the news editor for the Online Kingdom (http://www.kingshockey.com) since 1995, and has also covered professional hockey players of Japanese descent for the Rafu Shimpo (Los Angeles Japanese Daily News) since  2001.