Kings’ Long Trip Comes to Disappointing End in 4-1 Loss

DENVER —  It’s probably only fitting that this mess ended where it started eight days earlier.

L.A. to Denver to Boston to Detroit to Nashville to Denver to L.A.: 5,560 frequent-loser miles for the Kings on this series of flights toward oblivion.

Colorado’s Adam Foote and Peter Forsberg showed how special special teams can be Monday night in a 4-1 win over the Kings that finished a 1-4 trip, continued a 1-6 drought and demonstrated how fragile a team can be when it knows it can’t score.

The Kings are seven points out of a postseason spot with six games left, but that’s only arithmetic. Set up a tee time for April 19. The season ends the day before, and the playoffs are a mirage.

“Some of them are just playing it out,” Coach Larry Robinson said. “That’s what it looks like.”

It’s the first time this dreary season that he has acknowledged that the end is in sight, and that for some of the Kings, it’s gotten here sooner than scheduled.

“I don’t have anything to lose, but some of these guys are playing for their contracts, for their jobs next year,” Robinson said. “Why should I be sick and worry? They’re the ones that are losing jobs, losing money. If they don’t care to play on the ice, why should I care?

“I’m not the one losing. It’s absolutely astounding. It’s unbelievable.”

About half of the players who suited up Monday night will be free agents--either restricted or unrestricted--next season.

So will their coach, who finishes a four-year contract April 18 and, yes, does have something to lose.

“Oh, yes, I love sleepless nights,” Robinson answered to a query of whether he wants to be behind the King bench next season.

Who would be in front of him is another story.

“It was easy to play last year when things were going well [and the Kings had clinched a playoff spot by now], but you really see the true colors of a person when there’s some adversity,” Robinson said. “Ones that can step up and play through adversity, those are the ones you want to have around. The others? Let them go. Cull those out. You’re only going to make yourself better.”

For 15 minutes, the Kings played as though a lesson taught in a 7-2 loss a Sunday ago here had been absorbed. They checked Colorado’s score-crazy forwards as close as possible without exchanging uniforms, outshot the Avalanche, 8-4, in the early going and hammered goalie Patrick Roy with pucks three times in the game’s first 26 seconds.

And then Foote took a loose puck into open ice on a power play and fired it past Stephane Fiset for a 1-0 lead at 15:32.

That was enough. Forsberg’s short-handed goal 88 seconds later was the game-winner, and his power-play goal in the second period was largely superfluous, as was that of rookie Milan Hejduk in the third.

Jozef Stumpel scored for the Kings in the third period, 38 seconds before Hejduk countered.

“We played 15 minutes of good hockey and then made two mistakes and pulled the puck out of the net,” Robinson said. “We stopped hitting. Nobody hit anybody. I could have suited up tonight.”

And perhaps scored. Somebody needed to.

The Kings are lost in an offensive desert, with 10 goals in their last seven games, and only Tampa Bay has fewer than the 172 the Kings have all season.

It’s made things difficult for goalie Stephane Fiset, who turned back 31 of 35 shots, many with acrobatic moves, most after being hit in the head by the crossbar of the goal, which was knocked over by Hejduk in the first period.

It’s been a typical game for Fiset lately, with acrobatic moves and all-too-frequent defensive lapses in front of him.

“I don’t know if some guys have packed it in or not,” Fiset said. “I do know that there are some guys who are working hard because they want contracts for next season.”

He’s one of them.

But apparently there aren’t enough.