Robinson Finally Sick of Kings, 5-2

King Coach Larry Robinson was too sick with flu to attend Saturday night’s game against the Calgary Flames at the Forum. He did not miss much.

The Kings basically made sure that he’ll get plenty of rest come playoff-time with a 5-2 loss to the Flames before a crowd of 15,135 on the final day of the Kings’ 30th-anniversary weekend.

Robinson, who has battled colds for much of the season, may have been able to watch the Kings from home instead of from behind the bench but the result was the same as it was Thursday when they lost, 4-2, to St. Louis. Assistants Jay Leach and Rick Green coached the team in place of Robinson.

In losing their second game in a row, the Kings can only hope for a miracle to avoid sitting out the playoffs for the fourth consecutive season. With 59 points, they trail Calgary for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff berth by eight with only 11 games remaining.

For the players and coaches, however, the season is not over as long as the Kings still have a chance mathematically to make the playoffs.

“There’s always hope but we can’t make the kind of mistakes that we’ve been making,” said Leach, who along with Green was told nearly two hours before the start of the game that Robinson was not going to attend. “We’ve got to keep playing.”

The Kings got off to a quick lead for only the second time in their last six games when forward Craig Johnson, who sat out 43 games because of a stomach injury, scored his fourth goal late in the first period to give the Kings a 1-0 lead.

The Kings held the lead until nearly seven minutes into the second period when Calgary’s Robert Reichel knocked in a loose puck from the slot past goaltender Byron Dafoe to tie the score, 1-1.

The Flames took a 2-1 lead early in the third period when winger Mike Sullivan scored a short-handed goal, the 14th given up by the Kings this season. Calgary’s Theoren Fleury added an insurance goal before the Kings’ Dimitri Khristich scored to cut the Flames’ lead to 3-2 in the final three minutes of regulation.

But Calgary was able to close the game out with empty net goals by Fleury and Glen Featherstone.

With the trade deadline Tuesday, the Kings are rumored to be one of the teams looking to move some players, including veterans Ray Ferraro and Kevin Stevens.

General Manager Sam McMaster, however, denied the reports and said the Kings have talked with some teams but do not have any trades in the works.

“Teams have called and talked about our veterans,” McMaster said Saturday night. “But, we haven’t had anything on the table.”

McMaster said the Kings will be contacting some teams about making possible trades, but the team will not be overanxious about acquiring players just because they are prospects.

“If it will help the L.A. Kings then we’ll make a deal by the deadline. If it won’t, we won’t. Do I think there will be one? I don’t have a clue. There are none imminent. Unless one pops up in the next two days, there will not be [any trades] made,” McMaster said.

“[The key] is that we know that the person. . . . can help us starting next year or in the future. If that is the case, we’ll make the trade.”

Because the Kings share off-season workouts with the Florida Panthers, Director of Player Development Dave Taylor and McMaster have talked to the Panthers--who have been rumored to be interested in Ferraro--six times in the last two weeks but not always about trading players.

“I talked with [Ferraro’s agent] this morning and he was concerned about the rumors also,” McMaster said. “I told him the same thing. That there was no truth to the rumors.”