Kings Find Out in a Hurry There’s Trouble in the Stars

Most of the crowd was still outside, fighting the Saturday night traffic on Manchester, when Dallas’ Tony Hrkac poked a puck into the Kings’ goal.

The time was eight seconds--that’s right, eight seconds, a record for a goal scored against the Kings--but when the tardy among the 13,329 settled in their seats and asked their neighbors what happened, nobody was much surprised when the answer was what’s left of the King defense had misplayed the puck.

The surprises came later when the Kings got a rare goal from Vladimir Tsyplakov and a rare power play score from Luc Robitaille that generated a lead.

It wasn’t enough to keep them from losing, 4-3, because the Stars were able to capitalize on a penalty-killing unit that was without Rob Blake. Brett Hull and Derian Hatcher scored power-play goals in the second period and Grant Marshall added what eventually became the game-winner at even strength.

The quick goal that started things seemed a harbinger of things to come when Philippe Boucher sailed in behind the King goal to start the play after the opening faceoff.

Boucher struggled, headed left, then tried to backhand the puck to Garry Galley, but instead it ended up on the stick of Hrkac, whose shot was good from a difficult angle to Manny Legace’s right.

“I made a bad play,” Boucher said. “I should have kept on going [instead of backhanding the puck]. . . . That’s easy to say now, but I’ll take it.”

He can share blame.

“There were about four things that went wrong with that play,” Coach Larry Robinson said after the Kings finished a four-game home stand with a 0-3-1 record.

One of the things was that the puck caromed oddly off the end boards and onto Hrkac’s stick.

“Ninety-time times out of a 100, that puck goes into the corner and around the boards,” Galley said.

This was No. 100.

“The nice thing about it was that we didn’t let it bother us,” Robinson said. “We came back and played them hard.”

And well enough to take a 2-1 lead.

Tsyplakov’s goal, set up by Josh Green’s relay of Yanic Perreault’s pass, was a rarity in that Tsyplakov shoots about once every leap year. He one-timed the puck in at 15:11 to tie the game, 1-1. It was only his 16th shot, and it came in the season’s 13th game.

Robitaille’s goal ended an 0-for-18 power-play drought for the Kings, and it was set up by Steve Duchesne’s pass. It was only the fifth power-play goal of the season for the Kings and it came on their 53rd opportunity.

But the lead wouldn’t last, because the penalty-killing unit, the NHL’s best through the season’s first 12 games, proved porous.

“We came in after the first [period] and said, ‘Uh-oh, we’re up, 4-0, in penalties,’ ” Robinson said.

Uh-oh was right, because it was 4-4 after the second.

Dallas converted on the first King penalty when Hull’s goal tied things at 2-2 at 3:55. The goal came when Duchesne tried to clear the puck and his pass hit Nathan LaFayette in the back and fell on Hull’s stick.

Hatcher’s goal, his first of the season, came when he sailed in unscathed and hammered home a pass from Jamie Langenbrunner.

The game-winner came from Marshall 1:09 later.

“The puck was behind my skate, and he shoved my skate,” said Boucher, who still wasn’t sure that the puck ever hit Marshall’s stick.

Not that it mattered. The Stars held a 4-2 lead, and Glen Murray’s fourth goal of the season, coming at 1:33 of the third period, merely made it close.

“I think we got away from our game a little bit in the second period after they scored a couple of power-play goals,” Robinson said. “We got a little tentative and stopped getting the puck in deep.

“I thought we took the game back in the third, but we still didn’t do a good job on the power play. Right now, it’s not winning games for us.”

Right now, nothing is. The Kings have won only one of their last six games, and the injuries are mounting.

“I think we’re just grappling at excuses if we say we didn’t win because Blake’s out,” Robinson said. “Others just need to step up.”