Penalties Send Kings to Another Loss

Two days off were followed by two days of practice, the Kings hoping to take advantage of a rare four-day break in their schedule to recharge and regroup and maybe even reinvent themselves.

But when they returned to the ice for real Tuesday night, they fared no better than they had in the two weeks before their brief respite.

Their penalty killing still was less than lethal and their winless streak reached a season-high six games when they gave up five power-play goals, an opponent season high, and lost to the Minnesota Wild, 5-1, in the Xcel Energy Center.

The Wild, of course, will never be considered an offensive power, at least not as long as Jacques Lemaire is coaching. But with Marian Gaborik and Pascal Dupuis each scoring a pair, the Wild established franchise records for power-play goals in a game and power-play goals in a period -- three in the second -- against the Kings’ increasingly generous penalty-killing unit.

During the Kings’ skid -- they haven’t won since Jan. 23 -- they have been outscored, 26-11, and given up 15 power-play goals.

“Everything seems to be bouncing against us,” said Eric Belanger, who scored the Kings’ only goal. “The first two goals, it was unlucky bounces against us, and after that it’s just in your head for the rest of the game.

“We just have to get back to believing in ourselves.”

Said Coach Andy Murray: “The mental part of sports, as anybody will tell you, is a major part of it, but you have to fight through the negativity and find reasons to be successful, eliminate all the excuses. There’s no excuse for us not playing better than what we played tonight. We normally play very well in this building.”

The Kings, in fact, hadn’t lost at St. Paul since their first visit, on Dec. 22, 2000, stringing together a seven-game unbeaten streak.

But this game started going badly for them even before Brian Rolston, Dupuis and Gaborik scored in an eight-minute span of the second period to give the Wild a 3-0 lead, virtually insurmountable for Lemaire’s defense-minded team.

The Kings’ captain, Mattias Norstrom, suffered a strained neck when he was checked into the boards in the first period and did not return. His status for tonight’s game against Columbus was undetermined.

He wasn’t around to talk afterward, but neither were most of his teammates, all of them changing in a back room and leaving the main dressing room empty and quiet after the Kings had lost for the 11th time in their last 14 games.

“It’s not time to talk about it anymore,” defenseman Aaron Miller said on his way out the door. “We’ve said everything there is to be said and we still go out with that effort. We put ourselves in penalty trouble and our special teams hurt us again. We’ve got to learn to play hard hockey and stay out of the box.”

He couldn’t help noticing a resemblance to seasons past.

“We’ve played real well and then this time of year we’ve started to let it slip away,” he said. “We’re going to have to find a way to dig ourselves out.”

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Sean Avery, who skated on the Kings’ top line a few weeks ago, was a healthy scratch for the first time this season, Murray explaining before the game, “We’re playing the 20 players that give us the best chance to win.”

He said he had spoken with Avery earlier, “and there are certain things that we’d like him to do differently -- things with his play and so on.”

He declined to elaborate.

“It’s really not fair for me to go into that,” the coach said.