Kings’ best do the worst damage in loss to Ducks

The Kings’ best players were among their worst players Monday, and that explains a lot about a slump that has deepened to seven losses in eight games.

Their best players are the most talented, the ones who can get by on skill and sometimes try to do that without adding diligence or concentration. Cornerstone defensemen Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson have been guilty of that lately, making poor decisions and bad reads that have ranged from ill-advised to outright baffling.

Their struggles have had a ripple effect that has been magnified since injuries took Willie Mitchell and Alexei Ponikarovsky out of the lineup. The Kings needed Doughty and Johnson to step up. Instead both have stepped back, figuring prominently for the wrong reasons in the team’s 2-0 loss to the Ducks Monday at the Honda Center.

The Ducks scored their first goal after Doughty, freshly out of the penalty box, took a needless tripping call in the middle of the ice and gave the Ducks another power play. They didn’t waste it, as rookie Cam Fowler’s 40-foot shot from the right-wing boards got past a screened Jonathan Quick at 12:48 of the second period.

Doughty said he didn’t think his trip of Corey Perry should have been a penalty. “But at the same time I’m not going to feel sorry for myself or anything like that,” he said. “Whether it was a dive or not, we can’t change it now.”

In the third period, perhaps a minute after Jonas Hiller made an acrobatic glove save to frustrate Anze Kopitar, Johnson pinched in on the right side and turned the puck over. That set Jason Blake and Teemu Selanne free for a two-on-one with Matt Greene back, and Blake finished it off with a wrist shot from the left side. .

Johnson, minus-1 Monday, is minus-12 defensively in his last eight games. Doughty didn’t get a minus but he hasn’t been nearly as effective at either end of the ice as he was last season.

“They need to be better. They need to be better,” Kings Coach Terry Murray said with more than a hint of exasperation.

“Everybody’s battling a little bit. A little fumbling of the puck and maybe a little bit of nervous play with the puck at times but we need those guys. The only way you get out of anything is with your best players taking charge. And we need them to be out best players, the two kids in the back, Doughty and Jack. We need them to be A-plus every night and certainly right now.”

The Ducks, who also had lost six of their previous seven games, got exceptional efforts from their best players. That hasn’t happened often this season but in an emotional division game, before an announced sellout crowd with divided loyalties, Hiller made that clutch save on Kopitar — who looked heavenward afterward in sheer frustration — and veteran right wing Teemu Selanne had two key assists, including winning the faceoff that led to Fowler’s goal.

The Kings don’t play again until Thursday, when they face the Florida Panthers at Staples Center. Before then, Murray and General Manager Dean Lombardi probably will make a decision on Brayden Schenn, who completed his conditioning loan to Manchester of the American Hockey League and watched Monday’s game.

Schenn could bring skill to a team that, aside from Doughty, Johnson, Kopitar, Justin Williams and Jarret Stoll, is dominated by interchangeable grinders. Center John Zeiler, who cleared recall waivers Monday, is nearly the same player as Kyle Clifford, who is much the same as Brad Richardson and Trevor Lewis. Bless ‘em all but they’re not the Kings’ best players.

Doughty is one of the best players and must play like it.

“We’ve got to look at the bad things we did in this game and the good things and improve on the bad things,” he said. “The next game is a must win. There’s no way we can lose that game.”

helene.elliott@latimes.com

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