LOS ANGELES _ It would be inaccurate to say that the grip the Los Angeles Kings have held on first place in the Pacific Division finally gave way.
The Kings have slid down a greased pole lately in trying to hold on to first, and they relinquished it in excruciatingly close ways in a 2-1 loss Wednesday to the Winnipeg Jets at Staples Center.
Winnipeg scored in the final minute in each of the first two periods and kicked open the door for the Kings by taking three offensive-zone penalties in the third period that the Kings couldn't capitalize on. They fell out of first place after the Anaheim Ducks' loss to the Vegas Golden Knights and have lost six of seven games since their 11-2-2 start. They are 1-5-1 in their past seven home games.
"It doesn't matter about standings," Anze Kopitar said. "We've got to obviously stop the bleeding, turn the ship around and get it going again. Right now it looks like we're going to have to win a 2-1 game and really get our checking game in order. Honestly, I think our offense tonight didn't score as many goals, but we were creating a lot. Again, we can't give up goals like we did tonight."
The Kings pulled to 2-1 on Tyler Toffoli's tip of Oscar Fantenberg's shot on the power play early in the third period. Toffoli screened Jets goalie Steve Mason and executed the deflection for his team-leading 10th goal.
But the rally stopped there.
The Kings couldn't conjure many quality chances in the second period, and paid for the second of back-to-back penalties with Patrik Laine's power-play goal. Nikolaj Ehlers spun away from Drew Doughty behind the goal line and flicked a backhand pass that Laine buried with 59 seconds left in the period.
Jonathan Quick played for the first time since perhaps his worst game of the season, a loss Sunday to the Golden Knights, and made 25 saves. His best save came with his outstretched glove on a wraparound attempt by Kyle Connor in the first period. But Quick couldn't track the puck cleanly on Winnipeg's first goal.
Adam Lowry collected the puck in traffic and backhanded it into an open net when Quick dropped down early and couldn't slide over in time. The goal, with eight seconds left, negated a better start to the game than Sunday.
"It's deflating," Kopitar said. "You go into a locker room thinking about that. You kill all the momentum that you had going for you."
