Kings’ Point Is Not Well-Taken in 4-4 Tie

It was nice of the Toronto Maple Leafs to stop by for a few hours, making an appearance in Los Angeles for the first since March 1998 and reminding the home team it still has plenty of work to do.

The Kings were reunited with two season-long problems -- a punchless penalty kill and a propensity for late-game collapses -- and the Maple Leafs, infrequent visitors that they had been, were happy to oblige.

The Kings lost a three-goal lead and nearly the game during Toronto’s third-period rally that led to a 4-4 tie before 17,163 unenthusiastic fans at Staples Center.

The King penalty kill, statistically the worst in the NHL, gave up two power-play goals and Toronto crawled back from a 4-1 deficit, undercutting the Kings’ opportunity to continue a solid streak.

The Kings are 4-0-1-1 over their last six games and lead the Pacific Division, two points ahead of the second-place Mighty Ducks, but there was reason for concern after Owen Nolan’s wrist shot beat Roman Cechmanek for a power-play goal with 3:31 to play in regulation.

Dodger reliever Eric Gagne was at Staples Center for a ceremonial pregame face-off on the day he won the Cy Young Award. Maybe he could have converted the save.

“We’re going to have to find a way to close these out,” center Brad Chartrand said. “We should have a killer instinct in that situation.

“Losing a 4-1 lead is intolerable in this locker room. There’s not a lot of smiles.”

The game was reminiscent of the Kings’ collapse last month against the Boston Bruins, when a 3-0 lead became a 4-3 loss after three third-period Boston goals.

All it meant to the Maple Leafs was avoiding an 0-for-Southern California experience; they had lost, 5-1, to the Mighty Ducks on Wednesday.

It took some verbal jarring from Toronto Coach Pat Quinn, who lit into the Maple Leafs after the second period.

“Obviously, he wasn’t too happy with the first two periods,” Toronto forward Mats Sundin said.

Things looked fine for the Kings through two periods. Alexander Frolov had two goals and an assist, Luc Robitaille showed he still had life in his 37-year-old legs and the defense kept the Maple Leafs from an abundance of scoring chances.

Frolov opened the scoring after scooping up a well-timed pass off the right boards from Trent Klatt. Mikael Renberg tied the score 2:34 into the second period, but Frolov scored again four minutes later, backhanding a rebound after Aki Berg mishandled the puck.

“I thought ‘Fro’ was outstanding,” King Coach Andy Murray said. “He’s maturing as a player and he needs to keep that trend up.”

Robitaille scored on a rebound, and Derek Armstrong, on a give-and-go, put the Kings up, 4-1.

But the Maple Leafs weren’t about to fold. The King penalty kill was.

With Robitaille off for holding, Gary Roberts poked the puck in after it had squirted through Cechmanek’s legs 4:26 into the third period.

Alexander Mogilny scored an even-strength goal at 12:42 and Nolan tied the score with Mattias Norstrom in the penalty box for holding.

The Kings entered the game with a league-low 72.9% success rate on the penalty kill. They allowed the Maple Leafs to convert two of five power-play chances Thursday.

“We execute and then all of a sudden it looks like we don’t know what we’re doing,” Murray said.

“We need to be accountable at all times.”