Kings sinking to new depths

Apparently, this is what the abyss -- or in more literal terms, rock bottom -- looks like in a Kings season gone beyond the tipping point.

Not only did they fail to score against, or barely hit, an alleged road-weary Nashville, which had played and lost the night before in Anaheim, but the Kings allowed three first-period goals in a dizzying, disengaged span of 1 minute 15 seconds, a Predators team record.

The bar has dropped so low around Staples Center that even a mediocre showing was a few levels removed as the Predators won, 7-0, on Tuesday before 14,751. Nashville took a five-goal lead about midway through the second period, reducing the back half of the game to garbage time.

“It definitely can’t happen again,” said the Kings’ Anze Kopitar. “No excuses for that. We played awful from the first guy to the last guy. It cannot happen again.”

The humiliation was a stark reversal of the Kings’ treatment of the Predators here on Oct. 23, in which they won, 6-0. That result seems as though it came years ago, rather than months.

It was the third time the Kings (15-27-2) have been shut out this season. The other two times came in back-to-back losses against Phoenix and at Dallas in November. For Nashville goaltender Chris Mason, it was his second shutout this season, his 10th in his career and the third time he has done so in seven games against the Kings.

“It was a collapse by our group tonight,” Kings Coach Marc Crawford said. “If you’re looking for an explanation, I don’t really have an explanation. I do know when you’re as fragile as our team has shown itself to be of late, if you get scored on early like that, it’s probably the worst thing that can happen.”

He spoke about trying to reverse course.

“From our coaching staff, I can assure you that we’re burning the midnight oil,” Crawford said. “I can assure you that we’re analyzing, maybe over-analyzing the games. This is the first game in months where we played poorly.

“We played awful. It was a stinker. There’s no two ways about it. You can’t mask this one, anyway. It was awful. We all have to take responsibility, myself included.”

Victims were numerous in the Kings’ third consecutive loss, and their 11th in 14 games since beating Vancouver on Dec. 10.

Two Kings goaltenders were torched. Starter Jason LaBarbera allowed three goals on seven shots and was pulled by Crawford at 6:40 of the first period.

The switch was so fast it looked as though backup goalie J.S. Aubin barely had time to take off his baseball cap on the bench.

His first big glove save, on Martin Gelinas at 12:33, received sarcastically tinged cheers.

Aubin allowed four goals on 22 shots, with two coming in the second period, one after his own giveaway, and two more in the third.

“This is as bad as it got,” Aubin said. “We have to regroup and stick with each other and make sure it’s not going to happen again. It’s pretty embarrassing to do that in front of our fans.”

You would have thought the damage, not just of the self-inflicted kind, would have come namely from the likes of Jason Arnott, who had a hat trick in Nashville against the Kings on Dec. 22, and David Legwand, and they were factors, of course, as Arnott scored his 15th goal of the season and had an assist and Legwand added a goal (No. 9) and two assists.

But there was hurt also administered from the bottom of the Predators lineup -- two goals from fourth-line players, Darcy Hordichuk and Scott Nichol, who scored their first and second goals of the season, respectively.

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lisa.dillman@latimes.com