Kings Fly Out at Home

Home sweet home?

Not for the Kings, whose 3-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday night was their third in their last four games at Staples Center.

Meanwhile, they’ve won seven of their last eight on the road.

A victory over the Flyers would have moved the Kings within one point of the first-place San Jose Sharks in the Pacific Division.

But on a night when the Kings saluted their six Olympians in front of a sellout crowd of 18,118, the Flyers turned in a medal-worthy performance, never trailing as goaltender Roman Cechmanek turned aside 20 of 21 shots.

The loss dropped the Kings to 11-11-3-1 at Staples Center, the worst home record of the 16 teams currently holding down playoff positions.

“Let’s credit our opponent,” King Coach Andy Murray said of the Flyers. “They played a very, very good road game tonight, and we didn’t play as good at home as we need to to beat a team of that caliber.”

The Kings got only a second-period power-play goal from Adam Deadmarsh while giving up goals to Ruslan Fedotenko, Eric Weinrich and Simon Gagne, the last putting the game out of the Kings’ reach with 63 seconds to play.

The Flyers, owners of the league’s best road record and the No. 1 overall record in the Eastern Conference, opened a three-game Western swing by improving their record to 28-0-4 when they score at least three goals.

They’re 17-8-3 on the road.

One thing that makes them so formidable, Murray said, is their size.

“They’re pretty big,” he said before the game. “When you see them step on the ice, they’re huge. They’re strong. For us to beat them, it’s got to be about speed and quickness and trying to turn up our transition game and skating hard....

“It’s interesting: They’re the biggest team in the league, but they’re one of the least penalized. As we told our guys, it’s not so much that they’re overbearingly tough, but they’re very strong, so we’ve got to be smart.”

The surging Flyers, even hotter than the red-hot Kings over the last two months with a 21-7-1-1 record in December and January to the Kings’ 18-7-4, got the Kings’ attention early.

They outshot the Kings, 9-0, in the first 91/2 minutes, one of the shots a redirection by Fedotenko of a blast from the blue line by Weinrich, giving the Flyers a short-handed goal and a 1-0 lead 6 minutes 43 seconds into the game.

With Gagne in the penalty box for hooking, Weinrich gathered the puck in front of the King bench and fired away. Fedotenko, positioned in the left faceoff circle, got a piece of the shot, deflecting it past goaltender Felix Potvin.

“They’re a big, physical team and they got on us quick,” King winger Kelly Buchberger said. “We were just one step behind, and we were pretty much there all night. We didn’t get a lot of shots or generate a lot of offense, and when you don’t do that you’re not going to win a lot of hockey games.

“When you play them, you’ve got to play them aggressive.”

King rookie Ryan Flinn, dropping his gloves for the fourth time in five games, showed some aggression later in the first period, instigating a fight with Todd Fedoruk after the Flyer winger had checked defenseman Jaroslav Modry.

The Kings seemed to come to life after that, killing the instigator penalty against Flinn and outshooting the Flyers, 5-0, in the last seven minutes of the period.

The Flyers, though, maintained their one-goal advantage until 4:39 of the second period, when Deadmarsh scored his team-leading 17th goal.

On a three-on-two breakaway, with Flyer Kim Johnsson in the penalty box, Jason Allison from the right wing fed a pass into the middle to Ziggy Palffy, who in turn dropped a pass for Deadmarsh.

Deadmarsh beat Cechmanek with a quick shot to the short side, scoring his first goal in seven games and his second in 12.

The score was tied for only 50 seconds, however, before the Flyers took the lead again, Weinrich chasing down a long rebound and scoring from the left point.

Gagne added the late capper, intercepting a pass from Philippe Boucher and skating in alone before flipping a backhanded shot past Potvin.

“We try to assert our will on our opponents,” said Murray. “Tonight, our opponent was more successful at asserting their will over us.”