Kings Lose Game, Garon

The Kings lost another player.

They lost a game.

Then they lost a little time addressing those problems.

The Tampa Bay Lightning walked off with a 4-1 victory at Staples Center on Tuesday. The Kings walked into their dressing room and held a 12-minute closed-door meeting after losing for the fourth time in five games.

Martin St. Louis, Vincent Lecavalier, Ruslan Fedotenko and Norman Milley scored goals for the Lightning (23-20-3), who may be the defending Stanley Cup champions, but are mired in ninth place in the Eastern Conference.

That left the Kings doing some soul searching, after being limited to a Dustin Brown goal and losing goaltender Mathieu Garon to a shoulder injury.

The players-only meeting resulted in a unanimous we’ve-got-to-be-better platform.

“We’re not happy with how things are right now,” assistant captain Luc Robitaille said. “We have to do whatever it takes as a team to get out of this. We haven’t been playing as good as we need to be now. It has to get better.”

These were hard words for a team that still has one of the best records in the Western Conference at 28-18-2. But the Kings seem to be in a precarious spot considering their mounting injuries.

Garon, who has started 27 of the last 32 games, did not return for the second period after suffering a shoulder injury fielding a shot by Fedotenko 14:22 into the game. He suffered a bruise and a cut that required two stitches.

Although X-rays were negative, Garon will undergo an MRI exam today and seems iffy for Thursday’s game against Atlanta.

“Mathieu got hit in the shoulder -- that’s just how things are for us right now,” Coach Andy Murray said.

Garon adds his name to a crowded training room. The Kings are without Eric Belanger (strained groin), Pavol Demitra (nerve damage in leg), Aaron Miller (back injury), Jeremy Roenick (broken finger) and Lubomir Visnovsky (cervical strain), all important pieces. Only Visnovsky is said to be close to being ready.

That has given Murray an up-close chance to assess the talent of the Manchester Monarchs -- the Kings’ farm team -- and left some fans chanting, “Let’s go Monarchs” during the third period.

The injury epidemic was a central part of the team meeting.

“It was a good talk, everyone got up and spoke,” forward Jeff Cowan said. “We’ve got a lot of important guys out right now and it is up to everyone here to step their game up.”

That didn’t happen Tuesday.

Garon left after the first period ended in a 1-1 tie, putting the game in the hands of Jason LaBarbera, who had just returned from a conditioning assignment with Manchester. LaBarbera, playing only his sixth NHL game since Nov. 5, gave up two goals, but they were two too many.

“That’s not the way I hoped I would get back into a game,” LaBarbera said. “You’re a professional, so you should be ready.”

Still, he was in a tough spot. The first goal was on a two-man advantage to break a 1-1 tie.

The Kings’ Denis Grebeshkov was sent off for boarding. Sean Avery compounded that by taking a double-minor for high sticking. The Lightning cashed in the two-man advantage. St. Louis fed a pass to Lecavalier, who chipped the puck in at 8:09 of the period for a 2-1 lead.

It was the second power-play goal of the game for the Lightning, which came in with the NHL’s worst power play.

Later in the second period, Mike Weaver lost Fedotenko, who flicked in a wrist shot for a 3-1 lead.