Robinson Says Road Is Taking Its Toll

Most of the Kings refuse to use travel as an excuse, but fatigue is a major reason for the team’s current three-game slide.

The Kings have spent 32 days of the 68-day-old regular season on the road, playing 16 of their 29 games away from the Forum. They already have completed three trips to the East Coast and have played three sets of back-to-back road games.

Losses at Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto have caused Coach Larry Robinson to take a hard look at his team to figure out why it has struggled after going 7-4-1 in November.

“It hasn’t been just one thing, we’ve been awful . . . plain and simple,” Robinson said. “It’s now a question to find out why we’re awful. . . . You have to look at the travel schedule, that has to be part of it. Maybe the guys are tired.

“There’s no respect given to the Western [Conference] teams, look at all of the injuries Phoenix has had. Anaheim, the same thing. Until they start to look at how tough it is for a Western team to travel and give them a little bit of leeway in the schedule, we’re always going to have a tough time. . . . You can count on two hands how many quality practices we’ve had this year.”

The NHL has countered that every team has to deal with travel problems this season because of the condensed schedule caused by the Nagano Olympics, but Robinson disagrees.

“It doesn’t matter because we had a horrible schedule last year, it’s the same every year,” he said. “It’s just now that East Coast teams are complaining because they are getting a taste of what it’s like for us every year.”

Said left wing Craig Johnson: “It’s been a hectic schedule, but that’s not an excuse for playing the way we did in coming out and not putting forth the effort.”

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An example of the NHL schedule imbalance is that Montreal and Ottawa have each made only one trip to the West Coast, which is the only time either team has had to leave its time zone since the season began.

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Center Ray Ferraro, who missed 18 games because of a left knee injury, has decided to have surgery to repair his torn cartilage.