Kings Still Can’t Find Their Way in San Jose

They call this rink the Shark Tank, but for the last three years, the Kings might as well have called it simply the Tank.

The Kings have not won on this ice -- officially called HP Pavilion -- since March 18, 2002, a streak of eight games. The trend continued Tuesday as the streaking Sharks won, 4-1.

Drawing numerous penalties, including eight in the second period, and suffering defensive breakdowns, the Kings provided little support for goaltender Jason LaBarbera. After a shaky start, LaBarbera sparkled on numerous occasions, but in the end could not survive all the Kings’ lapses on defense.

“We have to be smarter than we were tonight,” Coach Andy Murray said. “We took [too many] penalties and wore ourselves out.”

Patrick Marleau set the tone early when he beat LaBarbera to the glove side with his 20th goal of the season 2:46 into the game.

LaBarbera was starting instead of first-stringer Mathieu Garon, Murray said, “because it’s his job.”

LaBarbera did his job well, particularly in a frantic second period, when the Sharks outshot the Kings, 13-3. He gave up two goals in that period as the Sharks took a 3-0 lead, but stoned Joe Thornton and Mark Smith on power-play attempts.

“This is the best I’ve played in a long time,” LaBarbera said. “I hadn’t been playing so swell lately. The coach challenged me [to play better] this morning.”

Murray said that “it was good to see Jason play the way he played tonight. The story of the game was in the second period -- In every game we’ve played against them, we’ve gotten more penalties than they have.”

In that second period, Nils Ekman made it 2-0 during a four-minute penalty to Joe Corvo. Milan Michalek put the Sharks ahead, 3-0, after finding himself alone in front of the King net.

“We’re treading water right now,” said Jeremy Roenick, who traveled with the team but did not play because of injury. “We’re trying to survive until the Olympic break. Then we’ll have most of our guys back.”

Murray disagreed, saying that injuries “had nothing to do with it. Fatigue was a factor after we gave up all those penalties.”

The Kings continued another disturbing trend, going scoreless in their first two power plays after going 0 for 9 on power plays against the Ducks on Monday night.

“We’re getting good chances on the power play, but I’m not pleased because we’re not scoring,” Murray said.

Corvo finally broke the Kings’ power-play drought at 5:52 of the third period on a slap shot from the left point that beat goalie Evgeni Nabokov to close the gap to 3-1. Marleau, however, added an empty-net score at 17:38.

Skirmishes broke out throughout the contest. Thornton was tossed from the game after boarding the Kings Tom Kastopoulos at 11:13 of the final period. In the second period, Scott Thornton of the Sharks and George Parros of the Kings squared off, with Thornton landing a punch.

“They say familiarity breeds contempt,” Shark Coach Ron Wilson said, referring to this year’s schedule, which has division rivals facing each other eight times.

“It’s not really contempt, it’s more intensity.” The games against the Kings, he said, are “close to a playoff atmosphere.”