Inconsistent Kings prep for sizzling Maple Leafs team that features familiar faces

The Kings will host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday night at Staples Center and it’s unlikely that the visitors will have to ask for directions around the arena.

Winger Kyle Clifford, newly re-acquired by the Leafs, could show them the way. He spent nearly a decade in L.A. and won two Stanley Cups with the Kings before he was traded to Toronto, then moved on to St. Louis and ultimately returned to Toronto.

Failing that, defenseman Jake Muzzin surely remembers the lay of the land from six full seasons and parts of two others in Los Angeles. Perhaps Jack Campbell, who resuscitated his career during four campaigns as a King, could offer a little guidance before taking the ice as one of the top goalies in the NHL since becoming a starter last season. Campbell has already turned in three shutouts and three one-goal games in the month of November.

If none of them recall the way, former Kings winger Wayne Simmonds has a long memory and fond recollections of Los Angeles from the first three seasons of the 14-year veteran’s career. He later returned to win the MVP of the 2017 All-Star tournament at Staples Center.

“I loved playing in L.A. It was a first-class organization. They gave me my first opportunity in the NHL and I’m forever grateful for that,” Simmonds said that weekend.

In their new blue-and-white threads, those former Kings are on a competitive team that has fizzled out in imaginative ways in the postseason. They’ve lost in the opening round of the postseason in each of the past five years, and haven’t won a playoff series since 2004.

After some early-season meandering that included a four-game skid that saw them outscored 18-6, the Leafs have won 11 of their last 13 games. That surge has placed them within two points of first place in the Atlantic Division behind the Florida Panthers.

Of late, the Kings have been trending in the opposite direction as their generally steady efforts have produced uneven results. They have been winless in their last four games but had reeled off seven consecutive victories prior to this slump. Before that? Six straight games without a win.

Apart from two outliers that accounted for 12 goals against, the Kings have ceded just 34 goals in their other 16 games. That would improve their position of having the NHL’s seventh-best defense (statistically) to the third best. The Leafs, however, currently occupy that position with no qualifiers needed, and removing their two worst outings would leave them with the best goals-against average in the league.

Both teams have been near the bottom of the league in offensive output, but the Kings’ production has been especially feeble of late, even in some instances when they have handily out-shot and out-possessed opponents. They’ve scored two or fewer goals in four of their last five games and the fifth game was their first loss in four contests this year in which they’ve scored four goals or more.

“We’re getting the chances and some days they go in and some days they don’t, so hopefully they start coming our way,” defenseman Matt Roy said.

TORONTO AT KINGS

When: Wednesday, 7 p.m.

Where: Staples Center

TV/Radio: TNT / iHeartRadio (English) / Tu Liga 1330 (Spanish)