Not Quite Kings of Road

First they clinched, then they flinched.

Less than 24 hours after nailing down a playoff berth, the Kings still had plenty to play for Saturday against the San Jose Sharks.

A victory would have completed a regular-season sweep of the Pacific Division champions and kept alive the Kings’ hopes of securing home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs.

But the Kings failed to capitalize on the opportunity, their 3-1 loss in front of 17,496 in the Compaq Center extending their road winless streak to six games and assuring them no better than a fifth-place finish in the Western Conference.

With only today’s regular-season finale against the Mighty Ducks at Staples Center remaining to be played, the Kings still can finish anywhere from fifth to eighth in the West, with fifth a definite longshot.

They would finish fifth, securing a first-round meeting with the St. Louis Blues, only if they defeat the Ducks and get help from the conference’s two worst teams, the Columbus Blue Jackets and Nashville Predators, who would have to win or tie today against the Chicago Blackhawks and Phoenix Coyotes.

Most likely, they will play a division champion in the first round, either the Sharks, Colorado Avalanche or Detroit Red Wings, the league’s best team.

Advancing against any of them will require a better effort than they gave against the Sharks, who before Saturday were 0-4 against the Kings and had been outscored, 12-5, while killing only 15 of 21 penalties.

They killed all three Saturday and gave up only a third-period goal to rookie Jaroslav Bednar, which cut their advantage to 2-1 with 17:11 to play and ended the shutout bid of Evgeni Nabokov, who turned aside 28 saves.

“Very, very disappointed in the way that a number of our players approached this game,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “They don’t disappoint us very often, but we were disappointed in our effort today....

“As I reminded our players after the second period, it’s such a privilege to play in this league and along with that privilege comes responsibility and that responsibility means you play as hard as you possibly can.

“We didn’t play as hard as we possibly could today.”

Winger Ian Laperriere was more succinct: “We didn’t show up.”

The Kings, who sprinted into the playoffs with a 13-2-5-2 stretch run last season, are laboring this season. They are 3-5-2 overall, 0-5-1 on the road, since March 23, when they extended their season-long winning streak to six games with a 3-0 victory over the Sharks at Staples Center and moved into a tie for the division lead.

Their last road victory was over the Sharks, 3-2, on March 18.

On the other hand, they’ll take a 10-game home unbeaten streak into today’s game.

They are 8-0-2 at Staples Center since March 2.

And when they flew out of LAX on Wednesday for their final trip of the season, they still had a chance to overtake the Sharks and win the division title.

On Thursday night, the Sharks gave them an opening, losing to the Blues, but the Kings failed to take advantage, losing to the Vancouver Canucks, 5-2, at Vancouver, Canada, also failing to lock down a playoff spot.

They were in their hotel rooms in San Jose on Friday night when the Edmonton Oilers lost to the Calgary Flames, clinching a playoff berth for the Kings.

Then came Saturday.

Neither team seemed motivated, the Kings even less so.

Marco Sturm left alone in the slot, and Scott Thornton, on a rebound, scored second-period goals to give the Sharks a 2-0 lead and then, after Bednar got the Kings closer, Teemu Selanne scored on a breakaway with 11:09 to play.

“I think you didn’t see great play from either team,” King defenseman Mattias Norstrom said. “It wasn’t great hockey. It was really off pace, but they were stronger than we were, for sure. I don’t know the reason why, but we came out flat.”

They stayed that way too.

“We have struggled on the road,” defenseman Mathieu Schneider said. “I think if you look back on our last five or six road games, we haven’t had the jump in our legs that we’ve had at home.”