No Defending the Kings

At first glance, one would think that the Kings’ biggest problem would be on offense with top scoring forwards Jason Allison, Adam Deadmarsh, Bryan Smolinski and Eric Belanger sidelined because of injuries.

Well, think again.

It has been the Kings’ defense that’s been letting them down the most, and that was the case again Tuesday as the Dallas Stars ripped through Coach Andy Murray’s suddenly fragile team, 7-4, in the highest-scoring NHL game played at the two-year old American Airlines Center.

In their second road game in as many nights, the Kings were no match for the Pacific Division-leading Stars, who rode right wing Jere Lehtinen’s three goals and defenseman Darryl Sydor’s two power-play goals to their second victory over the Kings in four days.

“You can’t blame one position ... you have to blame everybody for not doing their job defensively,” King defenseman Dmitry Yushkevich said. “We scored four goals, and that’s supposed to be enough to win any game in this league, but we gave up way too many goals.

“The system that we play, you have to be very sharp and all five guys on the ice need to work together. If one guy misses his assignment, our structure gets broken.

“That’s been happening a lot in key parts of the games for us because guys are not really sure with what they are doing.”

To say it just wasn’t the Kings’ night would be a vast understatement.

After Brad Chartrand scored the first goal to give Los Angeles a 1-0 lead 5:21 into the opening period, the Stars skated around the Kings with ease, forcing Murray to play musical chairs with goaltenders Jamie Storr and Felix Potvin the final two periods.

“The only way you win in this league is if your goalies are good and we need our goalies to be better,” Murray said. “I have to say that I like both guys, but we need them to be better.”

Storr and Potvin faced only 23 shots against the Stars. The Kings have given up 35 goals in their last nine games, going 2-7.

Storr, who started for the third time in four games, gave up two goals in the first and one in the second before being pulled in favor of Potvin, who won Monday’s game against the Minnesota Wild. But Potvin wasn’t much better; he gave up three goals in the second before being replaced by Storr, who took over at the start of the third.

“We put Jamie back in because of the score and we wanted to keep Felix out for Thursday night [against Edmonton at Staples Center],” Murray said.

The biggest headache for the Kings’ goalies on Tuesday was Lehtinen, who recorded the second hat trick of his career in front of an announced crowd of 18,532.

After Sydor tied the score, 1-1, with a power-play goal, Lehtinen gave the Stars a 2-1 lead heading into the second period. Brenden Morrow, who finished with a goal and two assists, set up the score with a creative backhand pass from the slot.

In the second, Morrow scored at 4:07 to give the Stars a two-goal lead, but rookie Michael Cammalleri beat goalie Marty Turco to cut the Kings’ deficit to 3-2 at 8:52.

Then the floodgates opened. Jason Arnott scored, followed by two by Lehtinen and the route was on for the Stars, who took a commanding 6-2 lead into the third.

The Kings closed within 6-4 in the final period on goals by Craig Johnson and Brad Norton, but that would be as close as they would get.

Sydor finished the scoring at 12:55.