Loss is a tough lesson for the Kings

The Kings began the third period Monday at Staples Center with a lead, a string of penalty-killing successes and the knowledge they had been able to match the Toronto Maple Leafs hit for hit and shove for shove over the first 40 minutes.

Two lapses -- two needless penalties -- were all it took for them to unravel.

They lost the lead and the game, 3-1, missing a chance to move two games above .500 for the first time since the 2005-06 season and slipping behind Columbus and Colorado in the Western Conference standings.

It makes no difference that the Kings, now and eternally rebuilding, are a young team and that young teams are prone to mistakes. It makes no difference that the Kings, still finding their identity and their footing in a tough conference, weren't supposed to be in the top eight or 10 or maybe 12 in the West.

What matters is they gave themselves a better than decent chance to win and let it slip away. That's part of a learning process, and if this lesson doesn't sink in, none ever will.

"Tonight's game was not a reflection of our age," defenseman Matt Greene said. "We've been getting those penalty kills. We didn't tonight."

The Maple Leafs scored twice against Jason LaBarbera on power plays early in the third period, the first time with a two-man advantage and the second with a one-man edge, and clinched it with an empty-net goal by Jeff Finger, giving Brian Burke a 2-0 record since his coronation as their president and general manager.

They were 0-3-2 before his arrival, so he's likely to be nominated for sainthood any day now by the denizens of the self-proclaimed Center of the Hockey Universe.

Burke, who resigned as Ducks' GM for family reasons, was out of a job for only the few days it took for him to forge a six-year deal with Toronto. He had planned to attend Monday's game but was held up by bad weather back East. Mother Nature may be the only force greater than Burke.

The Leafs' victory notwithstanding, he faces a formidable challenge in bringing the Stanley Cup to Toronto after an absence of 41 years and counting. He had an exceptionally good foundation to build on in Anaheim in engineering the Ducks' 2007 Cup triumph, but he appears to have less to work with in Toronto.

Coach Ron Wilson is more optimistic. "Our team doesn't quit," he said. "When we were down one, I talked to the guys and said it was an almost perfect road game. They couldn't put us away."