ANAHEIM — Did the Kings do the Ducks a favor Friday? Did they provide a blueprint for the future by reminding their not-so-friendly neighbors that there is value in making a simple play rather than a fancy one? Did they provide Ducks coach Dallas Eakins with a series of teachable moments?

Yes, yes and yes.

“It’s a conversation every day,” Eakins said. “When you see us playing our best, it’s a simple game. You look across the league and any team that’s playing a simple game is playing its best. Any team that just complicates it one or two times, then it doesn’t go right. It’s not just a conversation for today, it’s a conversation for every day.”

The Ducks’ play often includes flashes of brilliance, whether it’s Troy Terry’s lasers that produced a team-leading 27 goals going into Sunday’s game against the New York Islanders or Trevor Zegras’ wizardry with the puck while scoring a lacrosse-style goal.

Occasionally, the Ducks have been too fancy for their own good.

It certainly was the case in Friday’s loss, when the Ducks were guilty of trying to make one pass too many before shooting the puck or trying to set up the perfect play when a perfectly adequate play would have sufficed. The Kings kept it simple and took a 4-1 victory from the Ducks.

“It’s not that we didn’t work,” Terry said. “It’s that we don’t always dumb it down. We have these mental mistakes where we try to get too much or we’re not focusing on just little details of the game that are killing us right now, especially in second periods. That’s kind of what it boils down to.”

The Kings played a “meat and potatoes” kind of a game, according to Terry.

“The difference is they know their identity and they didn’t have those mistakes and we did,” Terry said. “It is dumbing it down or however you want to say it. We’ve just got to know what makes us good and stick to it. We just can’t be letting off the gas for one shift here and there because it’s costing us.”

Related Articles

SECOND PERIOD WOES

The Ducks were outscored 12-6 in the second periods of their past six games, which has helped to explain a 2-4-0 record since the All-Star break Feb. 4-5. The Kings extended a 1-0 lead after the first period to 4-0 by the end of the second during their victory Friday at Honda Center.

“In the first period, we weren’t dominant, but we had some chances,” Ducks defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk said. “It’s 1-0 (in favor of the Kings), but in our second period, it’s becoming a thing and it shouldn’t. There are small details, bad habits that we need to get out of our system in the second periods.”

Terry said the topic of shorter shifts and more efficient line changes was addressed during a team meeting. The Ducks have been guilty of pushing too hard offensively, staying on the ice for extended shifts and then scrambling back to their bench exhausted after staying out for too long.

“It’s kind of a snowball effect,” he said.