The Puck Stops Here for Oilers : Kings Score 6-3 Victory to Finish Off Comeback, Defending Champions

Without Wayne Gretzky, the Edmonton Oilers will not be the Stanley Cup champions. Not this year, anyway. Gretzky and his new mates, the once futureless Kings, eliminated the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions with a 6-3 victory in the seventh game of their best-of-seven National Hockey League playoff series Saturday night before a raucous capacity crowd at the Forum.

It’s a new era of Kings hockey with the Great Gretzky, who scored the first goal and the last goal as the Kings completed their comeback from a three-games-to-one deficit against the Oilers.

Gretzky, who set a club record for points in a playoff series, with 12, and tied a club record for assists in a playoff season, with nine,has brought the Kings to life. And he has brought hockey to life in Los Angeles.

But to do that, he had to defeat, with some regret, the players with whom he has shared four Stanley Cup titles. He also had to defeat, with some degree of glee, the owner who traded him to the Kings last Aug. 9, Peter Pocklington.

Gretzky was last in line as the teams skated past each other, formally shaking hands. He shook hands with most of his old teammates, hugged a few, then gave his new fans a No. 1 sign as he skated off.

“I honestly had a lot of mixed emotions,” Gretzky said. “I don’t think it affected me on the ice, but it bothered me off the ice.

“I’m happy for the people of Los Angeles, for the players here, for the coaches, and I’m especially happy for (King owner Bruce) McNall. . . . But I know that no one takes losing harder than (Mark) Messier and (Kevin) Lowe. Those guys are champions. I enjoyed playing with them. . . . I feel deeply sorry for what they’re feeling now.

“Going through the line was difficult. I wanted to talk with them, but I also wanted to let them alone. . . . Personally, I didn’t enjoy the series at all. It wasn’t fun for me. For 15 days or whatever, I saw those guys every day, and no words were spoken. That’s not what life should be about. You’re supposed to be able to talk to your best friends.”

There were plenty of new friends packing the Kings’ dressing room after their impressive comeback. McNall was about as happy as a man can be on his 39th birthday. “I felt like a father giving birth to a new franchise tonight,” he said. “I kept flashing back from Aug. 9 up to today. I was ready to cry, really. I couldn’t believe it.”

After an epidemic of flu helped saddle the Kings with a 3-1 deficit, they came back to win Game 5 at the Forum, Game 6 at Edmonton and Game 7 at the Forum.

That’s what home-ice advantage is all about. The Kings became only the sixth team in the history of the National Hockey League to come back after trailing, 3-1.

The Kings will open their Smythe Division final series Tuesday night against the Flames at Calgary.

The crowd of 16,005 and then some roared when the Kings skated out. The fans stayed on their feet while the team skated through warmups, quieted for the two national anthems and resumed the original roar through the final strains of the Star-Spangled Banner and the opening faceoff.

Folks barely had a chance to settle back into their seats before Gretzky scored on the first shot of the game, bringing them back to their feet for a frenzied ovation.

It was a moment reminiscent of Gretzky’s first game as a King, when a capacity crowd cheered him onto the ice and then went wild when he scored on his first shot on goal.

But Gretzky was not a one-man show Saturday night. Bernie Nicholls had two goals, and goalie Kelly Hrudey, acquired late in the season from the New York Islanders to give the Kings a veteran in the nets for a game such as this, stopped 31 shots and earned a number of standing ovations.

As he held off the Oilers, preserving the Kings’ tenuous one-goal lead through most of the third period, and then continued to stop them when they attacked with a two-man advantage (after pulling Grant Fuhr out of goal) in the final minutes, the fans chanted “Hru-dey, Hru-dey, Hru-dey” on every save.

Gretzky’s goal, 52 seconds into the game, came on a two-on-one break, with Gretzky slapping a shot at the left corner of the Oiler net. Fuhr was kneeling there, ready for the shot, and he thought he had stopped it when the red light went on and the crowd erupted. Fuhr glanced over his shoulder to see the puck trickling in.

The Kings’ lead was short-lived. Jari Kurri evened the score at 4:48, putting in his own rebound of a shot he took off a three-on-one break.

Chris Kontos got credit for the Kings’ go-ahead goal in the first period when Nicholls’ slap shot from the left circle went high and was about to fly past the Oiler net when it hit Kontos, standing near the right post, and dropped in behind Fuhr at 11:56.

Kontos’ goal came on a power play, the result of a holding call on Normand Lacombe.

A holding call on Kontos with just 26 seconds to play in the first period gave the Oilers a power play at the start of the second period, and the Oilers took advantage, tying the game again just 34 seconds into the second period when Kurri centered a pass from behind the net to Craig Simpson, who fired the shot past Hrudey.

Again the Kings went ahead by a goal, taking a 3-2 lead at 6:51 when Dave Taylor battled for the puck along the right side boards, took the puck into the right corner and then sent it across the ice to Nicholls, who took the scoring shot from the left faceoff circle.

But again the Oilers tied it up, making it 3-3 at 7:48 when defenseman Lowe followed up on his own shot and put the puck over Hrudey, who had been knocked over by Simpson.

A shot by John Tonelli on a power play late in the second period hit high in the back of the Oiler net and popped back out before goal judge Ted Metcalfe saw it. Television replays from different angles showed that the puck had been in, and both Gretzky and Nicholls pleaded, but since none of the on-ice officials had seen it, the goal did not count.

Seconds after Tonelli’s shot, Craig Muni was called for holding, giving the Kings a two-man advantage for the 53 seconds that were left on an interference call on Jeff Beukeboom.

Skating five against three, Nicholls put the Kings ahead, 4-3, with his second goal of the period at 16:23. Gretzky sent him the pass from the left-side boards and Nicholls went right in on Fuhr, tripping over the kneeling goalie and then pushing the puck backward, behind Fuhr and into the left corner, while falling head first to the ice.

A clinching goal, making it 5-3 at 14:50 of the third period, was scored on a 45-foot slap shot by Dale DeGray, a King who had not scored a goal since Dec. 21.

The Kings’ sixth score, a short-handed goal on the net abandoned by Fuhr, was not extra insurance. It was simply the finishing touch, just one more reason for the fans to stand and cheer.

Nicholls said: “This was my first-ever seventh game, so obviously, it was the most exciting game of my career. These are the loudest fans of any building in the NHL. Once you step out on the ice, you get goose bumps. All year, they’ve shown support and, hopefully, now L.A. will be a hockey town.”

King Notes

Tickets for the best-of-seven Smythe Division final series between the Kings and the Calgary Flames will go on sale to the public today at 9 a.m., following sale by priority numbers at 8, at the Forum box office and all TicketMaster outlets. The series opens in Calgary, and the first games at the Forum will be Saturday, April 22, and Monday, April 24. Because of conflicts in the building, the rest of the series will be announced Sunday after a conference call with the NHL. Tickets will be $31, $22 and $16. . . . A shot by Bernie Nicholls that bounced off Chris Kontos and into the Oiler net in the first period gave Kontos a National Hockey League record for power-play goals in a playoff series (six) and added to his club record for most goals in a series (eight). . . . Wayne Gretzky’s goal at 52 seconds of the first period gave him 11 points in this series, breaking the club’s playoff record of 10 that was shared by Mike Murphy (1977 vs. Boston) and Daryl Evans (1982 vs. Edmonton). Gretzky’s assist on Nicholls’ second-period goal gave him nine assists in the series, tying the club record for assists in a playoff season.