Kings’ Luck Changes in a Hurry

Everything was breaking right for the Kings.

They’d weathered a barrage of first-period shots by the Dallas Stars, who figured to tire as the game wore on, having played the previous night at Phoenix, and they held the lead midway through the second period.

But then Mike Modano came racing down the middle of the ice.

Catching the Kings in the midst of an ill-timed line change, the All-Star center took a pass from Claude Lemieux in the neutral zone and charged all alone toward the right post as goaltender Jamie Storr held his ground -- and his breath.

At the last second, Modano slammed on the brakes, sending a spray of ice through the air, and veered left, sliding the puck into the net.

“That move was unbelievable,” Storr said.

Forty-eight seconds later, Rob DiMaio scored on a redirection, giving the Stars all the goals they would need Sunday night in a 3-1 victory over the Kings in front of a sellout crowd of 18,532 at the American Airlines Center.

The Kings’ early lead -- not to mention their three-game winning streak -- was gone in less than 60 seconds.

Not that it surprised anybody that they would lose to the Stars, whose record of 32-11-12-1 is the NHL’s best.

The Stars have lost only one of their last 19 games, putting together a 14-1-4-0 record since Dec. 26.

But King Coach Andy Murray said he expected more from his team, despite the absence of 10 injured players, matching another season high.

“We’re not happy with how we played,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter if they’re the Dallas Stars or not, we expect to play better.”

Of particular concern to Murray was the line change that left Modano by himself, resulting in the first of his two goals, and the failure of defenseman Jaroslav Modry to slow DiMaio’s rush to the net less than a minute later.

“Two stupid mistakes cost us,” Murray said.

Modano’s breakaway, he said, was made possible by a “terrible, sloppy, lazy change” after the Stars had gained possession.

Of DiMaio’s goal, Murray said, “He simply out-battled our guy and got his stick on the puck. You’ve got to respect him for that, but that’s a poor play by our guy.”

King defenseman Aaron Miller had just stepped onto the ice when he looked up to see Modano accelerating through the neutral zone.

“All of a sudden I saw him winding it up,” Miller said. “There’s no way I’m going to catch that guy. I just tried to dive and get a piece of him.

“You give a guy with that much speed an opening, he’s going to make something happen.”

Something bad happened for the Kings, who lost ground in the playoff race, falling nine points behind the eighth-place Mighty Ducks in the Western Conference.

“On the flip side, it’s very hard to win a game, especially against these guys, only scoring one goal,” defenseman Mathieu Schneider said.

“You’d have to play near-perfect hockey.”

The Kings weren’t up to that.

They didn’t score again after a deflection by Mikko Eloranta gave them a 1-0 lead at 16:52 of the first period.

Star goaltender Marty Turco, who earlier had foiled a breakaway by poking the puck from Ziggy Palffy, stopped 21 shots over the last two periods, 24 in all.