Kings show a lack of discipline in 4-3 loss to Hurricanes

Captains are adept at reading the shifting moods of the dressing room, of their teammates.

Of course, you don’t have to hold a degree in behavioral psychology after the Kings fell behind by three goals, took a rash of undisciplined penalties and ultimately lost, 4-3, to the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday afternoon at PNC Arena.

Carolina defenseman Justin Faulk scored his seventh and eighth goals, both on the power play. His eight power-play goals lead the league. Kings center Anze Kopitar scored twice for his sixth and seventh of the season.

“There’s a lot of unhappy players, quite honestly, a lot of us were here last year where we let it slide,” Kings captain Dustin Brown said. “And as a result we were not playing at the end of the year.”

Brown, who scored on a penalty shot for just the second time in his career, to cut the lead to 3-1 at 13:02 of the second period, was just as accurate with his summation. Last season, the Detroit-Carolina segment on the road was where things started to go sideways for the Kings.

For Brown, it was his second goal of the season. He went back to an old move, nicely outwaiting Carolina goalie Cam Ward. “It worked quite a bit right when the shootouts were implemented,” Brown said. “I haven’t used it in a while. I just tried to switch it up.”

After opening with a victory at Philadelphia on Tuesday, the Kings dropped back-to-back games on this trip, at Detroit and on Sunday. They had not lost consecutive games since starting the season 0-3.

The Kings had another less-than-inspired opening period and then were trailing, 3-0, before the five-minute mark of the second period.

The Hurricanes, winning for the first time in six games, happen to be the lowest-scoring team in the league and managed to score more than three times for the second time this season.

Kings Coach Darryl Sutter pulled starting goalie Jonathan Quick after two periods and replaced him with Jhonas Enroth. Sutter, tersely, made it clear that he didn’t do it just to spark the players.

“No, scored four goals on [21] shots, not good enough,” Sutter said.

The Hurricanes scored twice shortly after faceoffs, a pet peeve for any coach. Their fourth goal, by Faulk, was an own goal by Kings defenseman Alec Martinez, as it went in off his skate after he tried to clear it, at 17:46 of the second period.

Faulk’s power-play goal made it 4-2, and the Kings spent far too much time killing penalties. Twice the Hurricanes had five-on-three advantages and they scored on their first opportunity when Kings defenseman Drew Doughty went off for interference and Kopitar followed with a delay-of-game penalty, a faceoff violation.

“It’s hard to win games when we’re killing as much as we killed tonight,” Brown said. “We had to kill two five on threes and it taxes those guys that kill. We’ve got to be more disciplined … it’s something we’ve had trouble doing.

“Kopi’s probably our smartest player. He said he just blacked out and didn’t think about it. It’s like an instinct thing.”

Faulk scored on the ensuing two-man advantage, putting Carolina ahead, 3-0, at 4:26 of the second period.

“Mine was dumb, to be quite honest, I don’t know what I was thinking on that one,” Kopitar said. “Obviously I know that’s a penalty. At that point, I guess you can say the instinct takes over and it happens. But it happened at a very bad time to put us down, five on three.”

Doughty, who had taken at least one minor penalty, in seven straight games, took some of the blame. Sutter called that a bad statistic. The interference call, however, was questioned by Sutter, who said, dryly: “Generally, out West that’s not a penalty.”

Said Doughty: “I’m the one that started it all off taking two penalties in a row like that. I’ve been in the box way too much lately. It’s on me whether it’s a penalty or not.”

Defenseman Christian Ehrhoff, a healthy scratch for the last two games, was back in against Carolina, and center Jordan Weal made his first appearance since Nov. 3. The odd men out were defenseman Derek Forbort and center Andy Andreoff.

Sutter also did some line-juggling in the second period, to try to change course, reuniting Tanner Pearson with Jeff Carter and Tyler Toffoli and putting Milan Lucic with Kopitar and Marian Gaborik.

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AT FLORIDA

When: Monday, 4:30 p.m. PST

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Etc: The ageless Jaromir Jagr of the Panthers needs one goal to tie Kings legend Marcel Dionne for fourth place in NHL history. Jagr stands at 730 goals.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

Twitter: @reallisa