Dinner Tonight!

To put it in terms the suits in the suites at Staples Center would best understand, the defense rested Tuesday night.

Again.

Four Atlanta shots in 6:58 of the second period. Goals by Brad Tapper, Patrik Stefan and Per Svartvadet.

Two King shots in 7:22. Goals by Kelly Buchberger and Eric Belanger.

On a night when the Kings went from despair to desperation to despair, some of their alumni came home to roost when Fran Kaberle rebounded Donald Audette’s missed shot and beat goalie Jamie Storr at 1:20 of overtime in the Thrashers’ 7-6 victory before an announced 13,823.

“It’s always special when you play a team you used to play for,” Kaberle said. “It was an easy goal, scored into an almost empty net.

“I just saw the puck pop out, and it was right in front of me.”

Storr had gone out to deal with Audette’s shot, leaving the net open behind him.

The goal finished an illegal play, because Audette went onto the ice on a line change well before the Thrasher he was subbing for was in the vicinity of the bench.

“Give them credit,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “It was a smart play.”

Confessed Audette: “They had done the same thing earlier with [Rob] Blake.”

The goal came after Steve Reinprecht’s ninth goal of the season beat Damian Rhodes with only 13.7 seconds left in regulation to bring the Kings back from a 6-4 third-period deficit and salvaged a point, though it left another blowing in the same wind that took away two available from Tampa Bay on Saturday night.

A third-period goal by Audette--assisted by yet another former King, Ray Ferraro--had forged the 6-4 lead, but typically on this evening, it lasted only 1:06, long enough for Bryan Smolinski to push a pass from Reinprecht between Rhodes’ pads to cut things to 6-5.

But forget the excitement. This was a game that left Murray’s insides churning.

“Seven goals in 24 or 25 shots [actually 25] shouldn’t happen,” he said. “When you score six goals at home, you aren’t supposed to lose. And I don’t know that there were a lot of them that we can fault the goaltender on.”

With a diminished roster because Jozef Stumpel, Ziggy Palffy and Glen Murray were sidelined because of injuries, the Kings needed goaltending to hang on until reinforcements came.

They didn’t get it.

Stephane Fiset was spelled by Storr for the second game in a row after giving up five goals in 11 shots over 26:53 in a game the Kings trailed, 5-3.

“I told him when he got to the bench that ‘your teammates are letting you down,’ ” Murray said.

It was left to Storr to hold the Thrashers in check until some King scoring arrived.

That came in the form of a goal by Belanger, fed by Luc Robitaille, to cut Atlanta’s lead to 5-4 with still a period to play.

Twenty more minutes didn’t help the Kings, not with the defense they played.

“If you look at our games against Dallas at home, our play at Edmonton and then the play at Vancouver, three games in four nights against three pretty good teams, there is definitely something wrong with the focus on our team right now,” Murray said. “We’ve got to try and get our finger on the pulse.”

He’ll find it racing. The Kings gave up five goals in those three games, then five at home against the New York Rangers, four against Tampa Bay and seven on Tuesday against Atlanta.

“There are a lot of things going wrong,” Buchberger said. “We’re not playing good enough team defense. We’re very capable of doing the right things, but we’re not doing them.”

It wasn’t the shots. The Kings’ goal is surrendering 25 a game, and they did just that Tuesday and only 24 on Saturday in the loss to Tampa Bay.

The Kings blew leads of 2-0 and 3-1 against Atlanta, which beat them for the first time.

“When you score six goals and don’t play defense, you’re going to give up seven,” Buchberger said.