Kings End Their Trip by Getting Bell Rung, 5-2

Larry Robinson said there would be days like this.

When the veteran defenseman of the Kings warned a week ago that a hockey team cannot live on goals alone, he was a lone voice in the locker room, lost in the celebration of an easy victory over Quebec.

But when he spoke again Saturday night, he was the dominant voice in the quiet gloom after a 5-2 whipping by the Philadelphia Flyers at the Spectrum.

His words of warning about a lack of defense hadn’t changed, but now they carried more sting after the King defense broke down for the second consecutive night.

“We got caught in three-on-one and even four-on-one situations,” he said. “There are large gaps between our forwards and defensemen. We’re playing shotgun hockey and it just doesn’t work.”

The Kings have been blasting away at the enemy all season with impressive results. Their 146 goals lead the NHL.

Wayne Gretzky leads the league with 67 points, Luc Robitaille leads in goals with 26 and Bernie Nicholls has 24.

These are the Lakers of the NHL, run and gun. Or skate and gun.

But lately it hasn’t been much fun.

In their last two games, both losses, the club has allowed 12 goals.

The Kings gave up four goals in the third period Friday against the New Jersey Devils and four in the second period Saturday against the Flyers.

“The easiest thing in the world,” Robinson said, “is to go out there and score more and more goals. Sometimes you blow the other team out. But it balances out. We’re playing Russian roulette and now it’s catching up to us.”

It caught up dramatically with the Kings Saturday.

The Flyers took the lead at the 3:21 mark of the first period when Mark Howe carried the puck behind the net and centered it to Doug Sulliman, who slapped it in for his second goal of the season.

But the Kings got even late in the period on a Robitaille shot from the base of the left circle, good for his 26th goal.

Then the Kings ran out of gas.

In the space of five minutes of the second period, Philadelphia scored four times.

To the cheers of the sellout crowd of 17,423, it happened like this:

--At 4:29, Gord Murphy scored his sixth goal on a slap shot from just inside the blue line that deflected off a King stick.

--At 4:45, Mike Bullard got his 15th by sweeping the puck in from the right post off a pass from Craig Berube, who had retrieved the rebound off his own shot.

--At 8:03, Rick Tocchet got his 17th goal by tipping in a shot from teammate Murray Craven.

--At 9:29, Ilkka Sinisalo scored his 12th goal from just inside the left circle off a perfect lead pass from Dave Poulin.

“When somebody scores, bang, it’s contagious,” Bullard said. “Like a snowball, it just keeps going.”

Probably a good idea not to mention snowball around the Kings. They’ve seen enough over the last week and a half to hold them through the holidays.

It’s been a tough nine days, featuring six games in six cities, several of them buffeted by strong winds, snow and subfreezing temperature.

Four games into the trip, the Kings had two wins and a tie. A reporter was asked goalie Kelly Hrudey if this was a successful trip.

“Let’s wait until it’s over to see,” he said.

Well, it’s over and nobody was asking Hrudey the same question Saturday. Losses Friday to New Jersey and Saturday to Philadelphia left the Kings at 2-3-1 for the trip, 16-14-3 overall and third in the Smythe Division, only two points ahead of Winnipeg.

After the avalanche of Flyer goals, the game turned ugly.

The Kings’ Jay Miller and the Flyers’ Terry Carkner exchanged blows and were slapped with five-minute penalties for fighting.

King defenseman Marty McSorley shoved Tocchet after his goal and got a double minor for roughing. McSorley later got 10 minutes for misconduct when he squared off against Flyer Jeff Chychrun, who got the same. When McSorley started screaming at an official, he was ejected.

So the Kings return to Los Angeles to see if home cooking will make a difference.

King Notes

Friday night, Wayne Gretzky’s consecutive-game assist streak ended at 17, tying a league record. Saturday, he failed to get a point after doing so in 18 straight games. He also holds the NHL record in that category with 51 straight, a mark set six seasons ago. . . . The Kings return home to close out the calender year. They will start with Winnipeg on Tuesday, to be followed by Quebec, Vancouver, Calgary and Philadelphia. . . . King right winger Dave Taylor has returned to Los Angeles for treatment of a pulled groin muscle. . . . Left winger Jay Miller’s wife, Paula, gave birth to a daughter, Brooke Lindsey, on Thursday in Boston.