LOS ANGELES -- Jimmy Howard arguably has been the Detroit Red Wings’ most valuable player, giving them a chance to win almost every game he plays by stepping up big during his rookie season.

But the 25-year-old goaltender was particularly hard on his himself after the Red Wings squandered a three-goal first period lead and suffered a crushing 4-3 defeat to the Los Angeles Kings Saturday afternoon at the Staples Center.

“It’s tough. I take a lot of the blame for it,’’ Howard said. “I didn’t think I had my best outing. I was very disappointed in how I played. You learn from your mistakes and now I have to rebound from it.’’

While Howard threw himself under the bus, this latest collapse had more to do with the defense’s inability to control the Kings around the net.

“It hurts even more when you’re up 3-0,’’ captain Nicklas Lidstrom said. “We came out with a good push, but then in the second (period) we didn’t play well enough in front of our net. They got a lot of pucks in there, they were crashing the net and we didn’t do a good enough job to clear the rebounds or take the players out of there.’’

It was a particularly rough day for Brad Stuart (minus-4) and Jonathan Ericsson (minus-3).

The Red Wings also played a good chunk of the game with a short bench, losing three forwards to injuries. Tomas Holmstrom left late in the first period due to a bruised left knee. Patrick Eaves (sprained ankle) and Drew Miller (bruised ankle) left late in the second period.

The team’s initial prognosis indicates that none of the injuries are long-term.

The Red Wings squandered third-period leads in five out of six games from Jan. 16-26. This time, they got a head start, unraveling in the second period, when the Kings outshot them 13-4 and scored three unanswered goals.

Detroit’s collapse was compete when Michal Handzus scored his second goal of the game with 2:21 to play in the third period, as the Kings won their franchise-record ninth consecutive game.

Coach Mike Babcock was surprisingly composed following the meltdown.

“We made some mistakes, gave them two freebies, but other than that I didn’t mind our game,’’ Babcock said. “We had two power plays in the third period. The game’s on the line, we’d like to get one and win the game.’’

Henrik Zetterberg scored twice for the Red Wings, who also got a goal from Valtteri Filppula.

The Kings, who are 11 points ahead of the Red Wings, came to life midway through the game, when Alexander Frolov scored at 9:16 of the second period by squeezing the puck between Howard’s right pad and the goal post.

Handzus scored at 14:47 on a backhand shot from in front of the net, after Howard couldn’t control the puck.

“I tried to play it before I even stopped it. Just a dumb mistake on my part,’’ Howard said. “I should have stopped it and got control of it. As I went to play it, it just went off my stick.’’

Ryan Smyth tied it at 3-3 at 16:21, knocking in a loose puck in the crease during a scramble.

“We had the game going our way, we made two critical mistakes, a turnover from behind on a simple set breakout and, obviously, mishandling the puck,’’ Babcock said. “That kind of got them back in the game. And then they got going in the second. I thought we had a really good third, we tilted the rink. In the end they got a good break, Frolov had the puck, spun and shot it, it bounced around and came right to Handzus on his stick.’’

The Red Wings were focused on coming out strong after recent slow starts. They did that by scoring three goals on eight shots in the first period.

Zetterberg opened the scoring at 8:44, scoring on a bang-bang play after taking a pass across the front of the net from Pavel Datsyuk.

Filppula scored just 16 seconds later on a backhand shot with his back towards the net, after the Kings appeared to have broken up a rush started by Dan Cleary.

Zetterberg capped the rally with 4.7 seconds to play in the period, scoring his 16th goal of the season to make it 3-0. He batted in the puck from the crease after goalie Jonathan Quick failed to glove a shot by Brian Rafalski.

It was all downhill after that for Detroit.

“We’re still right there, we can’t sit and pout and feel sorry for ourselves,’’ Red Wings forward Todd Bertuzzi said. “We got to get back on the horse.’’