Everybody’s There to Witness Embarrassing Defeat by Kings

Unfortunately for the Kings, their first sellout crowd of the season had to witness one of their worst games, as the Detroit Red Wings handed them their third consecutive loss, 6-0, Saturday night before 16,005 at the Forum.

Detroit’s Brendan Shanahan, Steve Yzerman and Darren McCarty combined for five goals and five assists as they showed the Kings the type of line play they’ve lacked during their losing streak.

“People come and they want to see a good hockey game and we play like that,” King center Ray Ferraro said. “I mean it was embarrassing. We were awful and it’s just not acceptable for us to play like that.”

Detroit scored two first-period goals and then put the game away with three more in the second period as the Red Wings won their second consecutive game. Detroit (13-7-3) has now lost only once in its last seven games, while the Kings have not won since defeating Chicago last Sunday.

Effort was again a problem for the Kings, who were outskated and at times outhit by the Red Wings. Coach Larry Robinson did not point a finger at any one player, but he hinted that some changes may be in order for the Kings to start getting better results.

“I’m getting tired of yelling,” Robinson said after the Kings dropped to 9-10-3. “We have a team that doesn’t respond well when you raise your voice. We’re very fragile as it is. We didn’t play that well, but I think we played well for the first 10 minutes. Then, all of the sudden they score a power-play goal and we just fell apart.

“We just started standing and not moving the puck. We lost all our concentration and then we just got into everyone giving individual effort. I think we have guys who think they are a lot better than they really are. We’re not a team than can win that way.”

Goalie Stephane Fiset started his second consecutive game and played well early, but once the Red Wings got ahead, it was over for the Kings.

“We’re a team that knows that it has to work hard and we worked hard tonight,” said Shanahan, who had two goals and two assists. “We know that if we don’t we’re going to get beat no matter where we play.”

Shanahan’s skating ability was the key to Detroit’s first goal 10:11 into the first period. With King defenseman John Slaney in close pursuit, Shanahan pivoted near the left corner to lose Slaney and then fed Yzerman with a perfect pass in front of the crease to give the Red Wings a 1-0 lead.

Left wing Tomas Holmstrom scored the Red Wings’ second goal when he whacked in a rebound behind Fiset at 14:22 of the first period. Fiset had made a pad save on a shot by defenseman Vladimir Konstantinov, but before the puck could be cleared, Holmstrom snuck in for his second goal of the season.

The Red Wings scored 38 seconds into the second period when Shanahan picked up a loose puck and beat Fiset by the right post. Yzerman gave Detroit a 4-0 lead three minutes later when he rebounded his own shot for his 10th goal of the season.

Shanahan helped stretch Detroit’s lead later in the period when he lured the Kings’ defense to him outside the right post and then passed to an open McCarty on the left side for his seventh goal of the season.

The Kings were outshot by Detroit, 34-26, with their only solid chances against Red Wing goalie Chris Osgood coming in the first period when Vladimir Tsyplakov twice missed the puck sitting in the crease and when Dimitri Khristich was stopped on a breakaway. Osgood, who also shut out the Kings last month, improved to 8-5-2.

“If [the players] keep playing their way, we won’t go anywhere,” Robinson said.