Fans Sound Off as Wild Extends King Losing Streak

So that’s what greets a King goal at Staples Center, a foghorn.

Oh, and a red light behind the net.

Memories were jogged Saturday when Eric Belanger’s third-period shot from 15 feet eluded Minnesota Wild goalie Manny Fernandez and broke a 170-minute 36-second King scoreless streak.

By then the Wild had more than enough goals in its 4-1 victory, and the Kings learned the problem with selling out their home arena.

When 18,118 people voice their displeasure, the sound is penetrating.

Approval, as provoked by Belanger’s goal, is fleeting.

Derision, the product of only one goal in three games, lingers.

“I don’t blame them,” King captain Rob Blake said of the fans. “One goal in three games isn’t what they came to see.”

It’s one of the things Coach Andy Murray addressed in a rare closed-door meeting after the game, one in which he was calm because “we’ve yelled before. This isn’t the time for yelling.”

He addressed things that he ordinarily would deal with today, then announced a Sunday off.

“We had a full house,” he said. “We wanted to win desperately. We had 20 players who wanted to come off the ice to a standing ovation.”

Instead, they listened to a chorus of boos when Minnesota’s Marian Gaborik turned an impossible shot into an improbable goal by bouncing it off goalie Jamie Storr’s blocker for a 3-0 lead only 52 seconds after Wes Walz found the Kings cheating offensively and beat them to the other end of the ice for a goal.

And at game’s end, the only standing involved people leaving the building, muttering.

“I understand,” winger Ian Laperriere said. “We didn’t score goals.”

And didn’t win at home . . . again.

The Kings are 2-6-1-1 in their last 10 games at Staples Center and have six more to play before going back onto the road, where life has been better.

Only a week ago, they were leading the NHL in scoring and had made up enough ground to be on the cusp of breaking into the Western Conference playoff ladder, with a long homestand looming.

Forget the playoffs. The quest now is for another goal on Tuesday, when the Dallas Stars come to call.

“I don’t know if we’re doing anything different from when we were getting four or five goals a game,” Murray said. “I would ask our players. I would ask Dave Taylor [the Kings’ senior vice president and general manager, which makes him Murray’s boss], ‘Did we play badly or did we just not score? Do you associate playing badly with not scoring?’ ”

No. You associate it with not winning, and the Kings haven’t for three games now after a three-game winning streak on the road. It’s hard to win a game with one goal, impossible with none.

It’s also hard to win against Minnesota goalie Fernandez, who turned back 35 of 36 shots.

“This has to be his best game,” Wild Coach Jacques Lemaire said. “They could have scored . . . five, six goals. That’s how well they played. Fortunately, the puck was hitting our goalie. And a couple of times, the post.”

Fernandez established his dominance early, turning back five shots in a King power play that began only 42 seconds into the game. One shot, by Glen Murray, was within arm’s length of the net.

And Fernandez stopped Blake’s shot at the end of a two-on-one break later in the period, when Belanger laid it under Minnesota’s Filip Kuba and onto Blake’s stick.

“Pucks just weren’t going in for us,” Blake said. “It’s frustrating.”

One went in for Andy Sutton on a second-period power play to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead, and the quick goals by Walz and Gaborik made the score 3-0 before Belanger scored.

Gaborik also added an empty-net goal.

“We’re tough to play against when we score the first goal,” said the Wild’s Sean O’Donnell, a former King.

Too tough for the Kings, as it is turning out. In its first season, the Wild is 2-1 against the Kings.

To a man, the Kings believed they played better Saturday than they had in 3-0 losses at Philadelphia and to the Calgary Flames.

“I thought we had a lot more jump and energy than we had in the Calgary game,” Murray said.

But not enough jump to win.

And barely enough to light the red light and sound the foghorn.