What we learned from the Kings’ 4-1 victory over Florida on Saturday

What we learned from the Kings’ 4-1 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday:

1.) The Kings are a one-line team at the moment. One very good line, with Milan Lucic, Jeff Carter and Tyler Toffoli, but at some point another line is going to start scoring. Isn’t it?

In the meantime the Kings are riding Carter, who has goals in three straight games and 13 points in his last nine games, including seven goals. “He’s a guy that plays with a lot of speed and you could tell that he’s using it and he’s using it to his advantage,” Lucic said. “He’s feeling it out there….

“It’s great to see him kind of take it over and lead the team in the right direction, turning around after the 0-3 start. He’s one of those guys that wants to score and wants to be a part of contributing to a team’s success, and that’s what you want out of your big guys and your leaders.”

Said Kings Coach Darryl Sutter: “They scored three goals tonight. They’re clearly our best line and probably the whole game, not just scoring, the whole package of it.”

2.) Sutter scrambled the other lines during the game, still trying to create some offensive sparks. He started off with Anze Kopitar centering for Tanner Pearson and Trevor Lewis but later had Dustin Brown on the right side in Lewis’ place and put Lewis with Marian Gaborik and Andy Andreoff. Gaborik had three shots and was -1 defensively, leaving him with one goal, two points and a -6 defensive rating this season. Ouch.

3.) Special teams played a big role for the Kings, who killed a Florida five-on-three advantage that lasted a minute and 15 seconds in the second period. Buoyed by that, the Kings went on to score three times in 4:18. Through Saturday’s games, their power play ranked 11th in the NHL with a 20% success rate, and their penalty killing ranked seventh, at 84.9%.

“We held our own after giving up a goal late in the first period,” Sutter said. ‘Killing a five-on-three anytime is good. When you look at Florida scored four five-on-three goals of their 11 power-play goals.”

4.) Sutter seemed more comfortable spreading out minutes among his defensemen, rather than overloading Drew Doughty. The minutes-played leader among the Kings’ defense corps Saturday was Jake Muzzin, at 23:29, followed by Brayden McNabb (23:07), Alec Martinez (23) and Doughty (22:58). Jamie McBain played 13:37 and Derek Forbort, playing in place of Christian Ehrhoff, played 14:06, his highest total in four games. Doughty entered the game averaging 26:53; he’s now at 26:36, which ranked him fourth through Saturday’s games.

5.) Sutter gave the team Sunday off, no doubt welcome news to players after playing five games in eight days starting at home last Saturday and continuing through back-to-back games at Chicago and St. Louis before returning home to face Columbus and Florida. They’ll resume practice on Monday.

Follow Helene Elliott on Twittter @helenenothelen