Late-lead protection is reinforced

Not surprisingly, the topic du jour at the Kings’ practice facility had to do with hanging on to a late lead -- especially after Sunday, when they displayed how not to do so and lost to the Ducks.

It was addressed first in a team meeting before practice, and to bring the point home, players were given a one-page handout, Key Factors Late Game With Lead. Basic stuff, to be sure, broken down into the three zones: offensive, defensive, neutral.

But a reminder (or two) can’t hurt.

“Everyone knows, but at the same time, especially against a team like that coming off a Stanley Cup win,” defenseman Tom Preissing said. “Those guys know how to win tight games. You don’t get that far in the playoffs without learning some things along the way. It’s not necessarily something that’s innate. It’s more of a learned behavior because you do have to play differently in tight games.

“It’s kind of a teaching lesson, and hopefully we can do a little bit better, be a little more successful if that happens again. When it happens again.”

Clearly, the pain of blowing a 2-1 lead with about eight minutes left lingered. Kings Coach Marc Crawford refused to discuss the handout, saying: “There’s nothing to it.”

Defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky was especially discouraged. On the Ducks’ tying goal, he fell, which led to a two-on-one. Visnovsky said he kicked the ice and lost his balance. “Bad moment for me,” he said. “ . . . No more mistakes like this. No more.”

He wasn’t the only depressed King. Forward Ladislav Nagy, who didn’t play against the Ducks, said he was “a little surprised” to be a healthy scratch and said Crawford didn’t explain why to him.

Nagy, who has four goals and 11 points, is expected to be back in the lineup on Wednesday against San Jose because defenseman Jaroslav Modry will be gone for an indefinite period, leaving to be with his sick father in the Czech Republic. Jon Klemm, who played forward Sunday, would move back to his usual position, at defense.

On his current form, Nagy said: “Actually, not bad. Ice time, what I’ve had, I think it’s not bad. We’re a little bit struggling, the whole team.”

Monday’s two-hour conference call among NHL general managers dealt with, among other things, a proposal raised by the Ducks’ Brian Burke. If passed, a team dealing a player could have a portion of the traded player’s salary counting against its own salary cap.

Kings president and GM Dean Lombardi was rethinking the issue after listening to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman.

“My reaction going into this was that I would definitely be for it. Actually, the commissioner raised a point I hadn’t considered,” Lombardi said.

“That’s why you have these discussions. I think he [Bettman] saw something more big-market friendly, more spending. Then you’re getting a situation -- I think that happened in the NBA -- where you have dead money on the cap and that will have implications in terms of everybody’s payroll. I think that’s a legitimate concern.”

The Board of Governors meets on Thursday and Friday at a Pebble Beach resort.

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com