LOS ANGELES — The clock is ticking loudly for the Kings, but they remain just a point back in a Western Conference wild-card race that seemingly no one wants to win ahead of their clash with the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday night.

For most teams, having seven of their final 10 games at home would be a blessing, but the Kings already lost the first match of their seven-game homestand. That signified a nine-win gap between their road win total (19) and their home mark (10), the largest disparity in the NHL.

Now, they’ll face surging St. Louis and then the current final wild-card holder, the Nashville Predators, on consecutive nights at home. They’ll have to right the ship at Crypto.com Arena, where last season’s near invincibility feels like a distant memory from an era when goalies didn’t wear masks.

While they might not stay in a hotel as they occasionally did during the playoffs under former coach Darryl Sutter, the notion of importing their road game to home ice has returned under interim coach D.J. Smith.

“Just have the same mentality as we have on the road. Go out there in the first period and, I mean we’re going to want the crowd into it, not take the crowd out of it, like we’re on the road, but have that same mentality,” defenseman Drew Doughty said after a brutal showing for him and his cohorts against Utah on Saturday. “Just go out there, grind, get on the forecheck early, things will start opening up to make plays later on in the game.”

Though the Kings’ winning percentage is only .500 on the road, they’ve siphoned two more points from overtime and shootout losses in addition to winning nearly twice as many away games as they have in Downtown L.A.

“Last year, we couldn’t lose here and, right now, we don’t lose very much on the road,” Smith said. “That’s in your head. I can tell you this, people say it’s luck, there’s bounces, but you make your own luck in this world. You do it right long enough, things happen.”

Things have been happening for the Blues, who like the Kings were dominant from the trade deadline onward last season, only to falter in the first round of the playoffs and start this season groggily.

But since the Olympic break, St. Louis possesses the highest goal share of any NHL team, has tied for the best goal differential with Buffalo and owns the best points percentage in the West, trailing only the Sabres leaguewide.

That’s brought the Blues (31-31-11, 73 points) to the fringes of the postseason race, where they’re situated three points behind the Kings (29-26-18, 76 points) and four back of Nashville (34-31-9, 77 points).

The Predators cobbled together a five-game win streak that included an overtime win, a shootout victory and another de-facto one-goal game. But they have since lost three straight to leave the door cracked open for the Kings, who have dropped 12 of their past 15 decisions at home.

Nashville will visit the Kings not only on Thursday, when they’ll honor captain Anže Kopitar’s legacy before the game, but again on April 6 in another showdown that looms large vis-a-vis the playoff picture.

BLUES AT KINGS

When: Wednesday, 6 p.m.

Where: Crypto.com Arena

TV: FDSN West