The Kings played the Red Wings to a 4-3 shootout loss Monday night, a game that would have been won in regulation except for a giveaway with less than two minutes to go. It was a positive sign, though, an indication that the team wasn’t as bad as many feared they would be given the inexperience of their lineup.

Thursday night, with a struggling Vancouver in town, the L.A. team made no lineup changes; not to bring Tom Preissing in from the press box; not to give Brian Boyle another chance, nor Brad Richardson. They started the same goalie they have been using all season, Jason LaBarbera. But somehow, the guys in the purple and black uniforms weren’t the same team.

It took the scattered fans in attendance until halfway through the second period to figure it out. “Trick or treat — that’s it. They’re not the guys on the lineup card. They’re normal people in costume, because Halloween is tomorrow night.” At least, that’s what might have gone through onlookers’ heads. Because the disorganized and unlucky group who took to the ice in home colors bore little resemblance to the confident, aggressive team of three days before.

The game was not a minute old when Dustin Brown took a double minor for high sticking. LaBarbera made a couple of good glove saves on the PK. After one, the scoreboard camera showed him up close, looking stunned, whether at the save or the ferocity of the attack, the picture didn’t reveal.

But when Matt Greene took a hooking penalty before Brown was freed, things came apart. Daniel Sedin, derided by his coach early in the week, along with his brother, as being as up and down as the stock market, stuffed a puck between the L.A. goalie’s pads on a poke at a rebound.

Things might have turned around later in the frame on a Frolov penalty shot, but the puck dribbled off his stick as he went to deke, and Vancouver’s Luongo didn’t have to make a save. He was to gain his 40th career shutout on the night, and of this play, he said, “He lost the puck. I just tried to be patient. He went to his backhand and the puck jumped on him.”

Before the period ended, Mason Raymond carried a puck in from the blueline and deked, then shot a wrister over LaBarbera’s shoulder. The goalie didn’t go down or flinch, so the shot must have been absolutely perfect to find its only inch of possible space.

Period two started off with a good offensive shift by Armstrong, Ivanans, and Moulson, the latter demoted to the fourth line but effective, but the Kings lost focus early and never regained it. Though they outshot Vancouver 9-4 in the period en route to 28-18 in the game, they passed into each others’ skates and just didn’t keep pace with Vancouver.

Case in point: with 14 seconds left in the period, the puck was in the Canucks’ end. They skated it all the way down and made two passes into the Kings’ zone and scored. But it happened right at the end of the period, or, to be more accurate, in the split second after time was up, and the video replay call nullified the goal. But home team fans should have been asking how they ended up there in the first place, given the time remaining at the play’s beginning.

Period three had Vancouver add another goal, this time by another of Alain Vigneault’s recent whipping boys, Taylor Pyatt. Afterwards, Pyatt was relieved. “It’s nice to get that first one. I was just trying to get to the net and get a stick on it.” He had skated across the front of the net in the slot as a slapshot came from the blue line by Willie Mitchell. Pyatt got a piece of it, and the goal was, like the others the Kings gave up, not something that could be put down to their goaltender’s poor play. He just wasn’t getting any help.

About the game itself, Pyatt added, “We took a few too many penalties and put a little bit too much pressure on Roberto, but 4-0 is a good start to the road trip. It might give us a little spark.”

The coach, meanwhile, was spare in his comments after the game. “It was fun to see the [Sedin] twins get on the score sheet. [Henrik assisted on the first goal, and Daniel added an assist to the third]. It was great to see Taylor Pyatt get on the score sheet; his teammates are really happy for him. It was a great shutout, and we’ll get ready for tomorrow night against Anaheim.” When asked again about Pyatt, this time in terms of the line he played on, Vigneault said, “I’m hoping that’s going to get him going a little bit, and Steve Bernier almost scored a goal at the end of the second period. It was two points for us that we’ll take, and we have to get ready for tomorrow night.”

It’s unlikely that he or anyone else on the Vancouver side thinks they’ll find things as easy down the road 30 miles as they had it in the City of Angels. Tonight Vancouver had the treat. On Halloween night, maybe the trick.