Canucks End Kings’ Streak, 6-3 : Hockey: Vancouver scores twice while shorthanded, adds power-play goal to stop 6-0-1 run.

For almost 2 1/2 weeks, it didn’t matter who or where the Kings played.

Home or away. Divisional games. Non-divisional games.

They refused to lose. Finally, the inevitable happened. The Kings lost their first game since Oct. 29, 6-3, to the Vancouver Canucks on Monday night at the Pacific Coliseum before 15,896.

The Kings (12-5-2) gave up two shorthanded goals and a power-play goal. They went one for nine on the power play.

“You have to give them credit,” King Coach Barry Melrose said. “I think if you talked to (Vancouver Coach) Pat Quinn, he’d say it was their best game of the year. And as Lou Holtz said, ‘I was glad to watch it.’ ”

Said King defenseman Paul Coffey: “We played hard, but they beat us. There’s not anything we can do about it. That team over there is not stupid. We handed it to them pretty good last week.”

The unbeaten streak lasted seven games (6-0-1).

The Kings lost on the night their top line, probably the hottest line in the NHL, cooled off a bit. Luc Robitaille-Jari Kurri-Tomas Sandstrom combined for 63 points in the previous seven games. They picked up only three points on Monday. Sandstrom and Kurri assisted on Robitaille’s third-period goal. Kurri, who is leading the Kings in scoring, was given the assist after the game. It originally was awarded to Charlie Huddy.

After two periods, Vancouver had a 2-1 lead, but the Kings pulled even on Robitaille’s 17th goal of the season at 5:13 of the third. Sandstrom’s game-breaking speed set up the play. He cruised around defenseman Robert Dirk along the right wing boards and sent a centering pass to Robitaille at the right crease. Robitaille one-timed the pass, putting it between goaltender Kirk McLean’s pads.

That’s when the game turned into an offensive show. Only 55 seconds after Robitaille’s goal, the Canucks took the 3-2 lead on Petr Nedved’s fluke goal. Nedved’s centering pass from the right side behind the net went off King defenseman Rob Blake’s skate past King goaltender Kelly Hrudey.

Blake didn’t help matters when he went off for slashing Trevor Linden at 8:51, which led to Vancouver’s first power-play goal.

Left wing Greg Adams scored the power-play goal at 9:33, putting a backhander in front past Hrudey to make it 4-2.

After King center Corey Millen cut the lead to 4-3, Nedved scored his second goal at 16:37, which held up under video replay review. Jim Sandlak threw a pass in front and it went off Nedved’s skate as he was being checked into the crossbar by Sandstrom.

It was ruled that he didn’t intentionally kick it in. “He used his feet,” Melrose said. “And Kelly was adamant about it. He said it was kicked in.”

King Notes

As it turned out, right wing Dave Taylor spent two nights in the hospital. Taylor suffered a mild concussion when he was checked from behind in the third period against Edmonton on Saturday. The Kings said he was released from the hospital on Sunday, but Taylor spent another night there because of bleeding behind his left eye. He was examined when the swelling went down and released on Monday. Apparently, there is no other damage to the eye and Taylor is scheduled to be re-examined on Wednesday. . . . Defenseman Rob Blake, who suffered a bruised right wrist on Saturday when he was hit by Oiler Josef Beranek’s slap shot, took a regular shift and played on the power play against the Canucks. “At first, I was worried it was broken,” said Blake, who missed most of the second and third periods on Saturday. “The same thing happened to me a couple of years ago and I had a broken wrist.”

Defenseman Brent Thompson, who suffered a hip flexor strain in training camp, finally played his first game of this season. After spending a two-week conditioning assignment in Phoenix, Thompson has been with the Kings since Nov. 2 but was unable to break into the lineup. Because of Taylor’s injury, the Kings went with seven defensemen and scratched right wing Bob Kudelski and center John McIntyre.