LOS ANGELES-- If the Devils thought it couldn't get any worse, they were wrong.

Rookie defenseman Matt Taormina scored the lone goal Saturday night they fell to the Los Angeles Kings, 3-1, at Staples Center. But it was the loss of left winger Zach Parise with a potentially serious injury that left the Devils in shock.

Parise suffered what the team is calling a lower body injury midway through the game and did not accompany the Devils to Vancouver. Instead, he and general manager Lou Lamoriello flew back to New Jersey on a red eye flight or private jet.

Neither Parise nor Lamoriello were available for comment. However, the Devils are fearful that Parise may have suffered a serious right knee injury when he was hit by Kings winger Kyle Clifford with 3:40 left in the second period.

Parise had eight shifts in each of the first and second periods, but did not play at all in the third.

"I didn't see him come out for the third. Hopefully it's nothing major," linemate Travis Zajac said. "Right now is not the time to lose a player like that."

Indeed, the Devils have lost four of their last five games and can't score goals.

• Ilya Kovalchuk, booed loudly by Kings fans who didn’t appreciate that he snubbed the team’s $80 million offer to sign with the Devils, has no goals in three games and just one in his last six. He had two shots on goal against the Kings and has just four shots in three games.

• Parise hasn’t scored a goal in four games. Now he is out for an unknown period of time.

• Jason Arnott has no goals in five games and only one in 10 games.

• Zajac hasn’t scored a goal since opening night. That’s an 11-game drought.

Coach John MacLean said he is surprised by the lack of offense.

"A little bit, yeah, I am," MacLean said. "We have to battle through this. I'm sure it's frustrating for the guys."

Imagine how frustrating it is now for MacLean to lose Parise.

"You could tell he was laboring a little in the second," the coach said. "He's a tough kid. With a player like that you have to be cautious."

Jamie Langenbrunner said Parise was sitting next to him in the dressing room and then his linemate's gear was gone.

"This is not exactly what you look for," he said. "It's not ideal."

The biggest fear is a season-ending or serious knee injury that will sideline a key scorer for a team already having trouble scoring goals. Parise will be a restricted free agent after this season.

"I just hope it's nothing serious," Patrik Elias said.

The pressure is already on the Devils' other top guns. Kovalchuk is struggling. He did not have a shot on goal in San Jose Wednesday night and managed only two against the Ducks Friday night in Anaheim.

Kovalchuk had two shots Saturday night against the Kings, including one in the third period.

"I think he's feeling pressure for us to win games. He knows his job is to score goals," Langenbrunner said of Kovalchuk. "You can see the effort is there. If anything, maybe he's trying too hard.

"I don't think it has anything to do with his contract. He wants to win games. That's why he came here (to the Devils).You know it's going to turn around for him."

But when?

"We have to look in the mirror and think what we can do better," Kovalchuk said. "We just need to get more traffic in front."

The lone goal was a Taoromina wrist shot from the blue line that went through the legs of Dainius Zubrus as the winger cut across the slot in front of goalie Jonathan Quick at 10:38 of the second period.

I asked MacLean what he did when he was a player and wasn't scoring goals.

"My only gimmick was to go shoot more pucks into an empty net," he said. "To score sometimes you have to be selfish. You have to put the puck on net."

Scoring goals is a worry for the 3-8-1 Devils, who play Monday night in Vancouver.

But the health of Parise is their biggest concern of all right now.