Kings hope Dustin Brown is lucky seven

Dustin Brown on Saturday became the seventh left wing to play on the Kings’ top line this season, taking his turn through the revolving door in a spot that should have become stable long before the Kings passed the one-quarter mark of the season.

For those without a scorecard, here’s the recap: Ryan Smyth, Scott Parse, Andrei Loktionov, Brad Richardson and Dwight King have started to the left of center Anze Kopitar, and Michal Handzus moved there during one game.

That makes six experiments that didn’t last for various reasons, though Smyth found an excellent fit with Stoll and Justin Williams on a productive line that Coach Terry Murray has wisely left alone.

The seventh time the “help wanted” sign was posted, before Saturday’s game at Staples Center against the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks, Murray decided to move Brown from his natural right side to the left. Murray also moved a struggling Wayne Simmonds from the third line to the right side with Brown and Kopitar.

Brown’s was the seventh audition for a place the Kings knew would be difficult to fill after they lost the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes.

“But who’s counting, right?” Kopitar said. “Lucky No. 7, I hope. We’ll see.”

The move could benefit Simmonds, who had one goal in his previous 11 games and four goals and seven points in the team’s first 21 games.

“What I’m going to try to do is just kind of make space for those guys. One of those guys gets a couple of seconds with the puck by himself, you know it’s in the net,” he said. “So that’s pretty much my job.”

Simmonds played with Kopitar occasionally last season and knows the center’s tendencies.

“It’s more just give him time, give him the puck and let him do what he’s going to do because you know he’s going to make plays,” Simmonds said. “I think I’ve just got to get to open spaces and capitalize on the chances that I get.

“I think I’m struggling numbers-wise this year. Definitely not what I want. But I feel I’m still getting the chances, and as long as you’re getting chances you’re going to start to bury them and hopefully it comes sooner than later. Obviously, those guys will help that out too.”

The 1-5 slump the Kings took into Saturday’s game nearly canceled the six-game winning streak that preceded it. Their lack of scoring was only one cause for their slide: Enough players are off their game by just enough to put everything out of whack.

Their defense has been meek and mistake-prone, unable or unwilling to move opponents out of the slot. Losing Willie Mitchell to a fractured wrist made it necessary for every other defenseman to step up. Too few have met that challenge.

“I let my game slip a little bit and guys aren’t playing their best hockey,” defenseman Matt Greene said. “We’re not playing as well as we were when we were winning those games, and that’s got to change in order for us to start winning again.”

Their power play converted three of 23 advantages in those six games (13%) and their penalty killers allowed opponents to score seven times in 23 short-handed situations, a 70% kill rate. Only at home, where they had killed all 35 disadvantages in their first nine games, has their special-teams play been exceptional.

Not getting saddled with Kovalchuk’s salary cap hit might be a blessing for the Kings, but not getting another goal scorer has hurt them, especially since Alexei Ponikarovsky was playing a largely defensive role before he broke a finger Nov. 6.

The Kings hoped to continue their climb toward Cup contention by getting a few more goals from a few people, but only Williams and Stoll are on pace to significantly surpass last season’s totals. Goaltender Jonathan Quick has been better and that has kept the Kings competitive.

Brown has played the left side before, so maybe his audition will turn into something more permanent. If not, it will be General Manager Dean Lombardi’s turn to step up and fix this team before its season is broken.

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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