With their season-long losing streak dragging behind them like a stone of shame, the Kings hoped to have a new cohort in their midst in their second straight home game and third meeting in eight days with the St. Louis Blues today.

Both those games were part of their five-game winless stretch, with the Blues beating them 4-1 on March 1 and again, 3-2, in a shootout on Wednesday.

“We’ve got to beat them. We’re pretty familiar now,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said. “It feels a little bit more like a playoff series in that you get a little bit deeper on a particular team.”

It’ll be the first game after Friday’s trade deadline, one that saw the Kings at least check their main box in acquiring right-handed-shooting winger Andrei Kuzmenko from Philadelphia only about five weeks after the Flyers picked up the pending unrestricted free agent from the Calgary Flames.

GM Rob Blake said the team hoped they’d get Kuzmenko on a flight Friday night to arrive in time for today’s game. He joked that while he knew where in the lineup Kuzmenko would begin his tenure as a King, it was moot since Hiller was so quick to mix up his lines during games.

For Kuzmenko’s part, Blake understood that for all the information the coaching staff might throw at him, Kuzmenko’s first game would mostly depend on his own mentality.

“They’ll overwhelm you with systems tomorrow. As a player, and I’ve been in this situation of being traded, you listen for about 30 seconds, then you go out, and hopefully your instincts take over,” the former Hall of Fame defenseman said.

Kuzmenko had an explosive North American debut with 39 goals and showed some of that touch last season after arriving in Calgary in the middle of the campaign following a trade from Vancouver. The Kings are his fourth team in two years and third this season alone. Fellow Russian Vladislav Gavrikov had familiarity with Kuzmenko, as did fellow Kings defenseman Kyle Burroughs, who played with him in Vancouver.

“He’s a high-skill guy, I think you can watch his highlight tape and get excited about that and we’re getting a really good person too,” Burroughs told Kings blogger Zach Dooley. “When he first came to Vancouver, he didn’t speak a lot of English, but his personality shined through that and as he spoke more and more English, you could see his humor and I really enjoyed going to the rink with him. We’re excited to see that skill and what he can bring to the team.”

Kuzmenko and the rest of the Kings will be tasked with slamming the brakes on a slump that’s seen them deposit just eight goals in their past five games while allowing 21.