A Host of Woes for Kings

The puck sat there, tantalizingly close and in the open. With King goalie Manny Legace at his mercy, Nashville’s Sergei Krivokrasov merely had to poke it into the net.

That he did, at 1:54 of the third period Thursday night, to turn the Kings’ return to home ice into a, well, return to home ice.

They lost, 3-1, to the expansion Predators before 9,956, most of whom vanished into the night after rendering their vocal disfavor. The Kings have lost four times now in seven games at the Great Western Forum, where their record is a not-so-great 1-4-2.

Only Washington, at 1-5-2, is worse at home.

“It’s very discouraging,� King Coach Larry Robinson said. “I thought we took pride as a team in that this was our building.�

No pride. Only another fall.

The deciding goal came when Ville Peltonen slipped from right to left across the crease, taking the Kings’ Philippe Boucher with him.

Peltonen’s shot hit Boucher’s skate, and it was left to Krivokrasov to clean things up for his ninth goal of the season.

Krivokrasov won a puck in the corner 10 minutes later later and slid it out to Darren Turcotte, who flipped it over a prone Garry Galley and past Legace for an insurance goal the Predators were happy to have but really didn’t need.

They are on their longest trip of their first season, six games over almost two weeks, and are 3-2 on that trip.

And they have done it the hard way.

“We always talk about weathering storms,� Nashville Coach Barry Trotz said. “Well, we weathered their storm, got some good goaltending and then some breaks, then created a storm of our own.�

The Kings pounded Legace’s counterpart, Mike Dunham. Shots on the doorstep. Long shots. Easy shots. Difficult shots. Hard shots. Easy shots.

Twice there were shots to an open net when Dunham was too ambitious in coming out to challenge shooters.

Glen Murray hit the post with Dunham practically in another area code. Matt Johnson shot wide to the right with Dunham off visiting.

In the end, the Kings outshot Nashville, 36-18, and ended up with nothing to show for it but a 5-8-3 record.

“We had some chances,� Murray said. “We had more shots, but most of them were out by the blue line. [Dunham] played well, but if he could see it, he could stop it. I think if I saw shots from out by the blue line, I could stop them.�

The Kings had a lead, sure. But that was nothing new.

Vladimir Tsyplakov ventured into uncharted territory in the first period, taking a pass from Jozef Stumpel and scoring his fourth goal in as many games.

Tsyplakov had never scored in more than two games in a row.

The Kings were killing off a tripping/obstruction penalty against Jan Nemecek at the time, and Stumpel--in his second game back since a 10-game hiatus to nurse a hip injury--met Nashville’s Drake Berehowsky at the blue line, stick to stick, and stripped the puck, sending it toward Tsyplakov for the Kings’ sixth short-handed goal of the season, most in the NHL.

It wouldn’t stand.

First-period leads seldom have for the Kings, who have outscored the other guys, 15-5, in first periods, though usually outshot.

In seconds, it’s 17-9 the other way, which was a harbinger of what was to come.

For more than half the game, Legace gathered cobwebs while his teammates pelted Dunham.

Legace had faced only two shots in the first period--the Kings had 14--and only eight through the first 31 1/2 minutes. None of them were particularly difficult, and one of them was a throwaway 70-footer when Nashville was killing a penalty.

That changed when Peltonen took a cross-ice pass from Scott Walker that put him one-on-one with Galley. From there it was merely a matter of shouldering past the slower defenseman and back-handing a shot over Legace’s stick to tie things, 1-1, and fuel the Predators’ effort for the remainder of the night.

From there, it heated up slightly for Legace, whose defensive help frequently vanished, along with the lead and, eventually, the game.

At home. Again. Naturally.