King Streak and Good Feelings End in a 5-4 Loss to Rangers

Cancel the celebration. Pop the balloons and burn the bunting. The Kings’ demoralizing 5-4 loss Wednesday night to the New York Rangers, one of the few teams in hockey more unpredictable than the Kings, seemed to erase many of the good feelings generated by the team’s promising five-game winning streak.

Apparently, the Kings’ premature celebration over their new-found success contributed to their lack of it Wednesday night.

Coach Pat Quinn noted arm injuries among his players--from excessive back-patting.

“I guess they spent all their time reading all the nice things you guys said about them in the newspapers,” Quinn told reporters after the game. “That’s not the way to hold a five-game streak. I have observed since I’ve been here (coaching the team) that the Kings are very happy with modest success. That must mean they have low expectations.”

It was an observation made Nov. 29 by Marcel Dionne after the Kings beat New Jersey, 9-6, but did not play well. “We shouldn’t be satisfied with this,” Dionne had said, surveying the buoyant locker room celebration. “We have got to take some pride. We can’t win and make these mistakes.”

Quinn displayed equal parts disgust and anger when dissecting his team’s flat performance against the Rangers. The Kings held a 4-2 lead in the third period but saw that evaporate, along with a hope of reaching .500. They remain in fourth place in the Smythe Division with a 13-15-2 record.

“We had a lot of showboat stuff,” Quinn said. “The other team came out and knocked us off the puck. We had a number of guys who played their hearts out, but we had a lot of freeloaders. You could tell right away that we had our forwards on cruise control. That puts pressure on our defense right off.”

The Rangers, who are 9-12-6, spent most of the night in the King zone, buzzing goaltender Roland Melanson. It was Melanson’s first start in two weeks, and he was welcomed back with 37 shots on goal, contrasted with 22 the Kings had on Ranger goalie John Vanbiesbrouck.

“When I made the decision to start him, I was thinking it might be a busy night,” goaltending coach Phil Myre said of Melanson. “If you have to come back from a layoff, it’s better to come into a game like this.”

Myre charts the shots on goal and counts what he judges to be scoring chances. He said New York had 19 scoring chances, the most against a King goaltender this season.

Melanson was pressured because the King front lines were playing fast and loose with the puck. The alert and eager Rangers reacted by intercepting passes and poke-checking the puck free.

“I tell you what--if I were Rollie, I’d sue for lack of support tonight,” Quinn said.

The Kings were like a leaking balloon, collapsing as the game progressed. Their three goals in the first period--by Dean Kennedy, Bernie Nicholls and Luc Robitaille--seemed to bode well. But there has never been a doubt that the Kings can score goals.

However, with their minds more on scoring than containing, it’s all they can do to keep ahead. The Rangers got two goals in the period--by Lane Lambert and Walt Poddubny--to keep the pressure on.

“I didn’t have any legs--I don’t know how the other guys felt,” King center Bob Bourne said. “They played pretty well but we were flat. There just wasn’t much spirit out there.”

Not among the Kings, as they demonstrated to the 16,988 in Madison Square Garden, but there certainly was a spark among the Rangers, who’d had five days off. They continued to check and pester without much resistence from the Kings, who had played the Islanders the previous night. The few times the Kings did retailate, they were whistled for penalties. New York converted two of its five power plays.

In fact, after Sean McKenna scored at 8:50 of the second period to give the Kings a 5-3 lead, the Rangers’ Tony McKegney scored twice on power plays--at 15:02 and 16:36--to tie the score. The period ended with a melee that eventually gave the Kings a three-minute power play to start the final period. When the Rangers killed it with ease, the life seemed to drain out of the Kings.

The game-winning goal was the only goal that Melanson misread. Pierre Larouche took a backhand shot in the slot, and Lambert shoved in the rebound at 8:32 for his second goal of the game.

“I got a piece of both of (Tony) McKegney’s goals,” Melanson said. “I should have stopped those two. I really think I played well enough to win tonight. We just didn’t get the bounces. It’s tough, we’d really like to have got one point out of this.”

The point would have come from a tie. That’s what the Kings would have settled for. Therein lies their problem.

King Notes Dave (Tiger) Williams’ game misconduct penalty in the second period was his third of the season. That earns him a one-game suspension and costs the Kings $1,000. . . . True, the Kings have a poor travel schedule, but the Rangers have been on the road more than any team this season, playing only 11 games at home. . . . Lane Lambert’s goal in the first period was his first this calender year, his first as a Ranger, and it came on his first shift of the night. Lambert was acquired in a trade with Detroit but had not played for the Rangers this season because of a hip injury. His teammates had taken to calling him “Lame Lambert.” Lambert had scored his last goal on Dec. 31, 1985.