Kings Pay the Penalty for Lackluster Play, 4-3

The Kings took the first 15 minutes off Tuesday night and got away with it, so like your teenager, they tried it again.

They paid dearly with easy goals by Ottawa’s Shawn McEachern and Magnus Arvedson in the Senators’ 4-3 victory at Staples Center.

The up-and-down Kings finished the first half of their season with an 18-16-7-2 record, good enough for 45 points, bad enough to be on the cusp of postseason oblivion.

As in their first 40 games, when the Kings were good, they were very good. Good enough to get a short-handed goal by Dan Bylsma and a rebound score by Luc Robitaille in the first period, and their first 4-on-4 goal of the season, by Mattias Norstrom in the third.

As they have been since mid-December, when they were bad, they were awful.

They were particularly bad in the opening moments of the second. Defenseman Aki Berg whiffed on an outlet pass, and McEachern found himself suddenly alone with the puck and King goalie Stephane Fiset at his mercy.

A shot through Fiset’s legs made it 3-2.

A shot by Arvedson over Fiset’s glove only 2:38 later made it 4-2. Marcel Cousineau then took over for Fiset, but the damage had been done.

By evening’s end, the the Kings had served 30 penalty minutes. Ottawa--second-least penalized team in the NHL--but 10.

The Senators were on the power play for almost half of the first period and led, 2-0, on goals by Joe Juneau. Most of the announced 14,224 handled the show in relative silence.

As did the Kings.

Fiset was under assault, and Juneau’s second goal came on the Senators’ 16th shot, at 13:29. By then the Kings had one shot, that by Rob Blake in the opening minute.

It was one of those flat spots that so often cropped up in the first half of the King season.

That it had not been worse was the product of both Fiset’s work in goal and a fair amount of luck, because Ottawa had enough opportunities in the opening period to turn out the Kings’ lights.

Instead, Bylsma, on the ice killing a penalty, cut into the lead at 15:36 when he took a pass from Blake and tipped the puck past Ottawa goalie Patrick Lalime.

Center Bob Corkum started things by manhandling the Senators’ Jason York near the boards, then sliding the puck to Blake, who headed the other way.

Now the shots were 16-2.

It was only the second short-handed goal of the season for the Kings, who have given up eight.

Suddenly, there was an offense, and a bit more than three minutes later, Blake fired away from the blue line, with Robitaille beating Wade Redden to puck and Lalime to the net.

With less than a full effort, the Kings had a 2-2 tie, earned or not.

With the score 4-2 in the third period, Norstrom scored his first of the season, with the Kings short-handed..

Norstrom, who has only seven goals in his NHL career, swept a rebound past Lalime to cut the margin to 4-3, but the Kings quickly went back into the penalty box--first Blake, then the captain joined by Robitaille, who compounded his slashing call with a misconduct penalty.

By game’s end, the Kings had passed Ottawa in shots, 31-30, after giving the Senators that 16-1 head start, and Cousineau had shut the other guys out for most of two periods.

It was Ottawa’s first victory at any place the Kings have called home. And the Kings had limped into the season’s halftime with a less-than-regal 2-8-1 record in their last 10 games.