After falling apart in Pittsburgh, the Kings traversed the Keystone State for today’s throwdown with the Philadelphia Flyers and Calder Trophy favorite Matvei Michkov.

In Pittsburgh, the Kings scored in the first period for the fifth straight game and, despite going away from the early jitters of Tristan Jarry to start Alex Nedeljkovic, the Penguins again allowed a goal off the hop.

But the Kings faltered where they’ve typically excelled this season, in the third period, and then again in the frame that has flummoxed them the most, overtime. They fell to 0-0-4 in games that reached an extra session this season, bringing their two-season total to a lackluster 7-0-15.

Despite sitting on a second-intermission lead, the Kings were fortunate to even reach OT as the third period was dominated by the trio of Sidney Crosby, Rickard Rakell and Bryan Rust. They piled up menacing opportunities before Crosby set up the equalizer and Rakell secured the victory in overtime.

“Third periods have been our best, I think, that’s been the trend anyway, for a while, and it was not tonight,” Kings coach Jim Hiller told reporters. “We relied on Darcy (Kuemper) way too much. They got some energy with the second goal, they tied it. They had a lot of chances, too many.”

Kuemper was praised widely after the game as he contained more than a few fires once the Crosby line heated up late. Defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov and winger Adrian Kempe, who had a breakaway go awry in OT and who opened the scoring, respectively, each lauded Kuemper as well as Alex Turcotte, who scored a brilliant goal in transition.

“He’s a skilled guy. You can see that much in the games, but on practice days he’s been outstanding and finally he brought some of that into the game and scored a huge goal for us,” Gavrikov said.

At Wednesday morning’s session with reporters in Philadelphia, Gavrikov spoke in Russian about another “skilled guy,” Philly’s front-runner for rookie of the year, Michkov.

Michkov has racked up 27 points in 29 contests, averaging just over 17 minutes a game. He leads the struggling Flyers power play in points by a wide margin and trails only Travis Konecny in overall scoring.

He’s been held off the scoresheet in his past two games, but had 10 points in his prior five games. He’s already drawn comparisons to contemporary Russian stars like Nikita Kucherov and Kirill Kaprizov.