Lesson Is in Eye of Beholder

In the aftermath of the Kings’ worst performance of the season, there was more than one view of what could be gained from the loss.

Defenseman/captain Rob Blake provided the conventional line.

“We learned you have to play 60 minutes,” he said after a 5-4 loss at Edmonton on Saturday night.

“You can’t take a period off against anybody in this league.”

The Kings took the second period off and were outshot, 15-3, by the Oilers.

So they came home with a lesson--except the head King didn’t see it that way.

“Nothing,” said Coach Andy Murray of what his team brought back from Edmonton. “I don’t think you take anything out of a loss. You only learn when you win. You don’t learn when you lose.”

Nor, he said, does the performance reflect on the seven-game, season-opening trip that preceded the Kings’ inaugural game at Staples Center. It was the end of the trip, not its punctuation.

“It only puts a damper on [Saturday’s] game, the two points that we desperately wanted and didn’t get,” said Murray, who gave the Kings Sunday off. “Every game stands on its own merit.”

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The 4-1-1 start for nine points going into Saturday’s game ranks among the best in the 33-season Kings’ history.

They were 5-0-1 for 10 points in 1980 and 1992, both playoff seasons, and had nine-point beginnings in 1974, 1990, 1993 and 1995.

In only two of the seven aforementioned situations did the Kings win Game 7 (1990, ‘95).

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The annual Kings’ luncheon, sponsored by the Los Angeles Sports Council and Chamber of Commerce, is Tuesday at Staples Center. Tickets are $60. For reservations and information, call (213) 482-6352.