Defense Rests, Kings Lose Again

Finding different ways to lose has become a pastime for the Kings this season.

On Monday night, they blew a one-goal lead in the third period and lost, 2-1, to the Edmonton Oilers--who had lost their previous 14 games when trailing after two periods.

What makes the Kings’ second consecutive loss so frustrating is the fact that their defense and goaltender Byron Dafoe had dominated the Oilers for the first 40 minutes and had taken an Edmonton Coliseum crowd of 15,954 out of the game.

“Going into the third period, I think we were too complacent,” said Dafoe, who stopped 36 of 38 shots. “We were feeling a little too good about ourselves and then, the first five minutes [of the third period], they came out like gangbusters. They score two quick goals and I then I think we were all in awe like, ‘There goes the game.’ ”

On Dimitri Khristich’s ninth goal of the season, the Kings had a 1-0 lead after two periods. In the third, however, Edmonton’s Doug Weight needed only 42 seconds to tie the game and then Andrei Kovalenko scored the game-winner at the 5:19 mark to deal the Kings their 14th loss in 19 games.

“For us to play such a good game for 55 minutes and blow the game is really frustrating right now,” said Dafoe, who came within five seconds of a shutout in defeating the Oilers, 5-1, at Edmonton in late November.

The Kings were outshot, 38-22, and had 14 penalty minutes to the Oilers’ six. The Kings’ penalty-killing unit played well in not giving up a goal, but playing short-handed so much took its toll.

“To take the number of penalties like we did not only gives a team a number of chances with their power play, but it also kills your bench,” center Ray Ferraro said. “It took a lot out of us to kill so many penalties and we lost any momentum that we had.”

In a scoreless first period, Dafoe carried the Kings with 10 saves in the first nine minutes while the offense sputtered. But a late rally closed Edmonton’s shots on goal advantage to 13-10 going into the second period.

The Kings continued to rely on Dafoe in the second period as they gave Edmonton back-to-back power plays, thanks to minor penalties to Kevin Stevens and Khristich in the first 10 minutes.

The Oilers managed only three shots during their power plays and, seconds after completing a two-minute holding penalty, Khristich missed a solid opportunity when he shot wide on a breakaway coming out of the penalty box.

Khristich, however, capitalized on his next scoring chance when he slid in a shot from outside the left post behind Edmonton goalie Curtis Joseph at 11:03 for the game’s first goal. Ian Laperriere started the play when he dug the puck out from the right corner and assisted for Khristich’s ninth goal of the season.

The Kings, who played without injured forwards Vitali Yachmenev and Yanic Perreault, had more chances to stretch their lead but were stopped by Joseph, who saved 21 shots to improve to 14-15-4.

“We just have to score more and it doesn’t matter if we have only one, two or three power plays,” King forward Brad Smyth said. “We should have generated more chances by going to the net. We could have gotten more pressure on [Joseph].”

The Oilers got through on Dafoe in the third period. Edmonton took advantage of a poor line switch by the Kings to score on Weight’s 10th goal. Kovalenko put the game away when he whacked in a rebound from the slot.