A Year Later, Team Is at Loss

There’s that reference to last season again, but this time it’s a different sort of comparison.

Last season the Kings showed consistent effort, finished fifth in the Western Conference and rallied to win games in the third period.

None of those things are happening this season but . . .

“We’re playing better than we were at this time last season,” Coach Larry Robinson said Friday.

“Last year we had a great start. It’s something that we stressed, because it’s so important.”

The Kings were 5-7 in their last 12 games going into the playoffs last season.

They are 0-1 en route to those last 12 now, with a trip ahead starting Sunday at Colorado.

But they started miserably, going 5-12-3 in their first 20 games, nine points worse than a year ago.

“We’ve got everybody healthy now,” Robinson said. “We’re getting effort. . . . I can’t get mad at anybody because of last night’s game [a 2-1 loss to Dallas]. It’s not like you can look at film and say they didn’t try.

“Last night and in the last seven games, we’ve worked hard. We’ve gotten scoring chances.”

And they’ve gotten four wins.

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Dave Taylor, the Kings’ vice president and general manager, said Friday that he had talked with most of the general managers concerning most of the players who were traded in Tuesday’s deadline flurry.

“But when they talk deal, they want Olli Jokinen, they want Aki Berg, they want our draft choices and we’re not interested in that,” Taylor said.

Two weeks ago, while on a scouting trip in Finland, he spent time with Berg, who was as cold as the weather.

“I met Mr. Taylor only briefly and we just said hello, nothing else,” said Berg in a Finnish sports magazine. “. . . Everything is still open, but if the negotiations start like last time, you can forget the whole thing.”

The Kings were unable to re-sign Berg, who is playing in Finland but whose NHL rights still belong to the Kings.

Their plan, Taylor reiterated, is to build from within, and if that means they don’t acquire a star to put on the marquee at the Staples Center when it opens in the fall, so be it.

“In my years here, no one player sold tickets except [Wayne] Gretzky,” he said. “. . . A star doesn’t fill the building. A winning team fills the building. A winning team with a star fills the building.”

Plenty of seats have been available all season at the Great Western Forum.

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The Kings have hired Kevin Gilmore as assistant general manager. Gilmore, a former executive with the Mighty Ducks and Angels, will assist Taylor in contract negotiations and other facets of hockey operations.