Slumping Kings Reach New Low : Hockey: They give up 10 consecutive goals and lose their fourth in a row to Flyers, 10-2. And Lindros doesn’t even play.

An injured left knee prevented the Philadelphia Flyers’ star rookie center Eric Lindros from showing up for his only appearance at the Forum this season.

The Kings?

They had no such excuse for not showing up in a 10-2 loss to the Flyers on Tuesday before a sellout crowd of 16,005. After taking a 2-0 lead, the Kings collapsed, giving up 10 consecutive goals.

Yes, the Kings are riddled with injuries, but Tuesday was a new low as they hadn’t given up 10 goals in a home game since entering the NHL in 1967. Calgary scored nine goals in a 9-3 victory over the Kings on March 18, 1989.

Center Rod Brind’Amour led the Flyers with three goals and three assists for six points. Left wing Brent Fedyk added two goals and three assists.

The Kings (20-13-4) showed no sign of breaking out of their slump. They have lost four consecutive games and are 0-5-1 in their last six, 1-6-2 in their last nine.

Goaltender Kelly Hrudey had his second consecutive bad outing, giving up four goals on 13 shots. He was relieved by Robb Stauber at the start of the second period.

Only last week, King Coach Barry Melrose said he didn’t like to pull goaltenders. His team, however, backed him into a corner.

“I hoped it would kick our team in the butt,” Melrose said. “I don’t like to do it, but I felt like I needed to do something to wake the team up.”

But Hrudey had plenty of company in his misery. If Melrose wanted to sit every player who made a mistake on Tuesday, there wouldn’t have been any room left on the bench.

Afterward, Melrose called a team meeting at 11 p.m. He said he wasn’t going to destroy any furniture or kick wastebaskets.

“That doesn’t help,” he said. “That just hurts the furniture. The furniture didn’t lose the game for us. As a matter a fact, I thought our furniture was great tonight. I thought they had one of their best games.”

Making it worse was the fact that Philadelphia managed to do all its damage without Lindros. And the Flyers clearly were a struggling team before arriving in Los Angeles, winning only one of their last 10 games.

“People said, ‘You guys can’t win this game without Lindros,’ ” Flyer Coach Bill Dineen said. “They said we would not survive. Those comments lowered our confidence. But our guys responded with a great game.”

Not only were the Flyers playing poorly on the road, they have the NHL’s worst penalty-killing unit.

Lindros had missed nine consecutive games because of a sprained knee ligament, sitting out from Nov. 27 to Dec. 17. He had been playing well before re-injuring the knee about five minutes into Tuesday’s morning skate. Apparently, he hurt the knee when he hit a rut.

“It’s definitely not as bad as the first one,” Lindros said. “But they’re telling me not to play at least two games. What will happen after that, I don’t know. . . . I was going to the net for a rebound and it just happened. There was nobody even around. But the ice is soft here and my skate seemed to get caught on something. I went right but my knee went left.”

Lindros’ absence took some of the luster off the game. But who knows what the score would have been if he were in the lineup.

There was one bright spot for the Kings. Right wing Dave Taylor, who missed 18 consecutive games because of a concussion, returned to the lineup.

Doctors gave him clearance on Monday and Taylor was able to get in some playing time against the Flyers, looking quite respectable compared to his teammates.

King Notes

The absence of Rob Blake, who has missed three consecutive games because of a broken rib, has taken its toll on the defense. Near the end of the first period, Coach Barry Melrose put Marty McSorley back on defense to help out. McSorley had started the game on a line with Pat Conacher and John McIntyre. And without center Corey Millen (strained groin) it affects the second line, that of Mike Donnelly-Millen-Tony Granato. Still out of the lineup are left wing Lonnie Loach (broken thumb), right wing Warren Rychel (left ankle) and Tomas Sandstrom (broken left arm). Since attempting to come back from a broken arm last Tuesday against Vancouver, Sandstrom has missed two consecutive games. . . .The Kings are scheduled to have their first practice at their new training facility, Ice-o-plex, in Van Nuys on Jan. 20 after they return from a nine-day, four-game trip. . . . The Kings’ skills competition is on Sunday, Jan. 17, at 1 p.m. at the Forum. Each NHL team is conducting its own competition, which consists of several events--among others: puck control relay, hardest shot, fastest skater, accuracy shooting and breakaway relay. Tickets cost $7.50 for adults and $5 for those 15 and under.