Kings Fall Flat at Finish

The word “desperate” crawled into the Kings’ vocabulary often Thursday.

Team captain Mattias Norstrom tossed it out after the morning skate, when the day had promise. Assistant captain Luc Robitaille uttered it shortly after the day ended poorly.

Desperate times did not result in desperate measures in a 5-3 loss to the Edmonton Oilers at Staples Center.

Raffi Torres, Ethan Moreau and Todd Harvey scored third-period goals as the Oilers broke a 2-2 tie and handed the Kings their seventh loss in 10 games, with back-to-games against the Mighty Ducks on Saturday and Monday.

“This was a bad one to lose, that’s for sure,” said Robitaille, who scored his 554th goal as a King.

“We’re not unhappy with our effort today, and we can’t panic. What we have to do is play a little more desperate. We have two games with Anaheim, and these are big games for us. These are must-win games for us right now.”

The Kings have seven games left before the Olympic break, and they sit fifth in the Western Conference, but it is hardly a comfortable position. Vancouver, Colorado and Edmonton are within three points, and lurking on the horizon are the Ducks and San Jose.

“Points are tough to come by right now,” Norstrom said before the game. “We need to play some desperate hockey right now.”

That didn’t happen Thursday.

The Oilers were coming off an emotional and feisty game Wednesday against the Mighty Ducks, but had enough grit left to dominate the third period.

Torres planted himself at the crease and chipped in a Georges Laraque pass to break a 2-2 tie 4 minutes 27 seconds into the third period. Moreau scored on a short-handed goal two minutes later, and the Kings were in a deep hole.

Harvey made it 5-3 at 15:13 after Michael Cammellari had pulled the Kings to within one goal.

This loss, though, sprouted from the very beginning.

Craig Conroy took a hooking penalty eight seconds into the game. The Oilers capitalized when Chris Pronger fired a shot that goaltender Matthieu Garon stopped, only to have the puck bounce to Ryan Smyth to the left of the goal.

Smyth converted to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead 34 seconds into the game.

The Kings got even before the period ended, when Robitaille buried a slick no-look pass from Derek Armstrong. L.A. took the lead when Conroy scored on a breakaway 9:31 into the second period.

But the Kings never seemed to recover completely from the first goal, much to the displeasure of Coach Andy Murray.

“Obviously we’re not satisfied,” Murray said. “We took a bad penalty to start the game. We gave up a power-play goal. We had a 2-1 lead and seemed closer to making it 3-1 than they were to [tying the score]. We gave up a coverage goal. We gave up a short-handed goal....”

All of which meant one thing to the Kings.

Said Robitaille: “We need to be desperate.”