A season's worth of work to decide their postseason fate was essentially decided when their defense fell asleep in a six-minute span Saturday.
That's how long it took the Dallas Stars' Jamie Benn to record a natural hat trick, in the first period, and the Kings finished with a 4-2 loss that translated to a first-round playoff matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights as the first wild-card team.
"Obviously it's not a good enough start," defenseman Alec Martinez said. "Quite frankly, it's embarrassing. We left our goalie out to dry. That's not fair to him."
Martinez's two second-period goals couldn't negate Benn, who recorded three straight goals on a redirect of Alexander Radulov's shot-pass on a rush for a 4-0 lead that triggered one lone hat thrown onto the ice amid a smattering of boos at Staples Center.