Kings Waste 3-1 Lead in Tie With Sharks : Hockey: They score all their goals in first period, blow a power-play opportunity in overtime.

The Kings seemed to have it all going their way Tuesday night.

They were at home.

They were facing the San Jose Sharks, worst team in the league.

And, even though the game had gone into overtime, the Kings were the beneficiaries of a rarity, a penalty called with the game on the line.

But the way Kings have been playing lately, their power play is an advantage for the other team.

Tuesday was no exception.

The Kings failed to score on the power play, called with 2:25 to play in overtime, enabling the Sharks to finish in a 3-3 tie before a sellout Forum crowd of 16,005.

After Link Gaetz was called for slashing Tony Granato, the Kings took five shots at San Jose goalie Jarmo Myllys, missing them all.

Actually, the Kings should be thankful. At least they didn’t give up another short-handed goal.

When Jayson More was called for roughing early in the first period, it was the Sharks who wound up on the scoreboard, Bob McGill scoring the short-hander for his third goal of the season.

It was the fourth short-handed goal against the Kings in three games and the ninth against them this season.

Overall, the Kings were one for five on the power play Tuesday, making them one for 13 over the last two games. They also gave up two power-play goals Tuesday.

“Wow, it’s not getting any better,” Granato said. “It seems to be the special teams that all the problems are stemming from.”

Teammate Wayne Gretzky, however, wouldn’t stop there.

“We’re tentative and nervous,” he said. “We’re scared to lose. You can’t play like that. There’s a bad feeling in our game right now.”

The Kings briefly got a good feeling when they reeled off three straight first-period goals, Granato scoring his team-high 21st goal to tie the score.

The Kings then surged into the lead on goals by Dave Taylor (seventh) and Peter Ahola (third). Ahola’s goal was his first in 26 games.

But veteran defenseman Doug Wilson twice connected on power plays for his sixth and seventh goals to forge the tie.

The Sharks evened the score at 8:19 of the final period on Wilson’s second goal. Wilson threw what looked like a little pop-up in the direction of the net. A couple of players took a swipe at it as if they were swatting at a fly.

Fortunately for the Kings, defenseman Charlie Huddy was the only one to make contact. Unfortunately for the Kings, Huddy inadvertently deflected the puck past Hrudey to make it 3-3.

With about half a minute to play, the Sharks had a chance to pull out the victory with a two-on-one in the Kings’ zone. But Pat Falloon, in control of the puck coming down the left side, tried to thread a pass past Huddy. The King defenseman dived and got a piece of the puck, enough to throw it off course. The Sharks failed to get a shot on goal in overtime.

The tie extends the Kings’ winless streak to four games (0-3-1), their record dropping to 17-19-8. San Jose is 10-32-4.

The game was noteworthy for the Kings in at least one respect. Short-handed because of the unavailability of Jay Miller and Jim Thomson, Coach Tom Webster put veteran defenseman Larry Robinson on the wing for the first time in his King career.

“I came to the game thinking I would not even play,” said Robinson, who then learned that Miller was injured.

But the 40-year-old Robinson, who has been in the league 20 years and figures he was last on the wing a decade ago with the Montreal Canadiens, shrugged off the difficulty of making the switch.

“It’s not a complicated game,” he said. “We try at times to complicate it, and that’s when we make mistakes. It’s a simple game.

“Things are not going our way right now, but sometimes you have to make things go your way. There’s a snowball effect, but sometimes the snowball can go the other way.”

The way things are going for the Kings right now, it would seem easier to reverse the course of a snowball rolling downhill than to turn the slide of a team heading in the same direction.

King Notes

King wing Jay Miller sat out Tuesday’s game because of a bruised ankle, an injury suffered in practice. . . . Fellow wing Jim Thomson was excused to take care of family business in Edmonton. . . . Six of the nine short-handed goals the Kings have surrendered this season have come at home, the highest total in the league.