Kings Acquire Ronning and Beat Penguins, 4-3

The Kings got some offensive help Saturday, and not only from the four players who scored in a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in front of a sellout crowd of 18,118 at Staples Center.

Cliff Ronning, the Nashville Predators’ leading scorer in each of their four seasons, was acquired in a trade for seldom-used defenseman Jere Karalahti and a conditional draft pick.

The Kings hope the addition of Ronning, 36, will shore up a need they’ve been trying to address since they traded forwards Glen Murray and Jozef Stumpel to the Boston Bruins in October to acquire center Jason Allison.

Allison is their leading scorer, but the Kings have not been able to find a consistent point-producing second line.

Ronning will be integrated into the Kings’ top six forwards when he skates with the team for the first time at this morning’s practice in El Segundo and will make his King debut Monday night against the San Jose Sharks at San Jose.

Nicknamed “Rat,” the 5-foot-8, 165-pound Ronning played in all 67 games for the Predators this season and led the team with 18 goals and 31 assists, numbers that would make him the Kings’ third-leading scorer.

In 15 NHL seasons with the St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, Phoenix Coyotes and Predators, he has 792 points, including 279 goals.

“He’s a very competitive player,” King General Manager Dave Taylor said. “He’s been very consistent, creating offense with all the teams that he’s been with, particularly in Nashville the last few seasons, and we think he can help us to generate more offense, which we feel is one of our needs going down the stretch.”

Taylor said he has long coveted Ronning, who helped the Canucks reach the Stanley Cup finals in 1994, but that the veteran was never available.

This time, however, the price was right for both teams.

The Predators, looking to add size and toughness, dumped a player in the final year of a contract that pays him $1.85 million this season, with a club option for the same amount for next season, and picked up a defenseman 10 years younger, plus a third- or fourth-round pick in the 2003 draft.

The Kings, meanwhile, added offensive punch without depleting their core.

The trade, however, might be a hard sell in Nashville. The Predators gave up their all-time scoring leader for a player who in 1997 spent eight months in drug rehab for heroin use.

Karalahti, who will turn 27 on March 25, had played in only nine games since November, the odd man out in the Kings’ glut of quality defensemen.

“We like that aspect of it because our team has played very well, probably since the first of December,” said Taylor, whose team is 25-8-5-2 since Dec. 8, having accumulated all but 22 of its 79 points over the last 15 weeks.

Said Coach Andy Murray: “It’s adding a player to our lineup for a player that wasn’t playing, so that in itself has to be a positive addition.”

Not so positive was the Kings’ effort against the Penguins.

After Mikko Eloranta gave the Kings the lead for good when he scored 13 seconds into the game, and Mathieu Schneider, Nelson Emerson and Jaroslav Bednar added goals to extend the lead to 4-0 with 3:19 to play in the second period, the Kings nearly gave it all back.

Randy Robitaille made the score 4-1 midway through the third period, then Michal Rozsival and Kris Beech scored goals 27 seconds apart, trimming the Kings’ advantage to 4-3 with 5:05 remaining.

But the Kings held on, completing a 3-0 home stand.

“To be honest, I don’t think we were deserving of a 4-0 lead,” Murray said. “I was not real pleased with the way our team played. We had some players who had some very good games for us, but we had too many players who I think relied on their skill and did not show the right level of respect for our opponent.

“And when you don’t respect an opponent in this league, you get kicked in the teeth, and we almost got kicked in the teeth.”

The Kings turned their heads just in time. The victory moved them into sole possession of fifth place in the Western Conference.

And a proven scorer is on his way to help them down the stretch.