Kings Are Edged by Oilers, 6-5 : Question Is, Did Edmonton Win It or Did L.A. Lose It?

With a team as powerful as the Edmonton Oilers, it’s a fine distinction between what is given away because of a mental error and what is earned through hard work.

The Kings think they “gave” the Oilers three goals Saturday afternoon. The Oilers would rather believe that they created such turmoil in the King zone that the mistakes were forced.

The debate may linger, but the outcome will stand. The Oilers came away with a 6-5 win over the Kings in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs before a crowd of 11,888 at the Forum.

Errors in their own zone and turnovers by the Kings led to three Oiler goals. Coach Mike Murphy of the Kings was less than pleased about that fact.

“You can’t make those kind of giveaways,” he said. “They capitalize. We had three giveaway goals in our own zone, I think that was the difference.”

There was little debate about it in the Kings’ dressing room. “We had a few dumb goals (scored against us); they don’t need any giveaways,” forward Jim Fox said.

Most of the Kings echoed Fox. “We can’t afford to give them anything, they don’t need it,” center Bernie Nicholls said.

It’s been a problem for the Kings all season.

“We know it and we can correct it,” Nicholls said.

The Oilers hold a 2-1 advantage in the best-of-seven series going into today’s game.

Dave (Tiger) Williams had two goals and an assist for the Kings, and Nicholls had three assists.

Mark Messier and Jari Kurri had two goals each for the Oilers. Wayne Gretzky and Glenn Anderson had two assists each.

Edmonton had a 4-2 lead coming into the third period, then scored two more. The Kings came up with three goals, including one from Luc Robitaille with seven seconds left. It wasn’t enough.

Williams scored at 2:55 to bring the Kings within one at 4-3, but goals by Messier and Kurri made it 6-3 in favor of the Oilers.

On the final Edmonton goal, King defenseman Mark Hardy bounced a pass off the boards to Dean Kennedy. It was intercepted by Kurri. It was a risky play.

“At that point in the game, I should have been a lot more safe,” Hardy admitted.

Fox’s goal at 12:19 made it 6-4.

The Kings came out in the first period displaying the hard-hitting, tight-checking style that won them the first game, 5-2.

They could not repeat the feat Saturday.

“They are very fast skaters,” Hardy said. “They dump the puck in (and) they come in at you. They criss-cross coming in. The way to stop that is to take the man (with the puck) and finish him off. We have to finish them off in our zone.”

While there was a full measure of pushing and shoving, there were relatively few penalties.

Nearly all of them resulted in power plays. Neither team scored with the man advantage, the Kings were 0-7 and the Oilers were 0-2.

The Kings scored first, on a back-hander by Bryan Erickson. Nicholls had raced with the puck up the left side, faked a defender and passed to Erickson, who made it 1-0.

For Erickson, who had been scratched the first two playoff games, it was a triumphant return.

The excitement of that lead didn’t last long, not quite two minutes. Esa Tikkanen took a pass from Gretzky, faked King defenseman Tom Laidlaw and beat goaltender Rollie Melanson for the goal.

Edmonton took the lead when Mike Krushelnyski scored at 7:28. It was a case of Melanson stopping the puck, and the Kings in front of him failing to clear it.

“We have to make it easier on ourselves and get the puck out of our own zone,” Hardy said.

After each team had failed to take advantage of a power play, Williams got his first goal. Defenseman Dean Kennedy left the puck for Williams on the left side, and Williams beat Oiler goaltender Andy Moog with a slap shot.

That tied it at 2-2 and lifted the Kings. Although Williams isn’t getting as much playing time as he had during the regular season, he’s making the most of it. His two goals Saturday gave him three for the series.

“Tiger’s a great competitor when he’s on the ice; he gives 100%,” Murphy said. “He’s a blue-collar player. He does what he has to to win.”

At that point, the goal seemed pivotal for the Kings. Although they were not getting the scoring chances that the Oilers were getting, the Kings were capitalizing on the few they got. At that point, at 13:15 in the first period, Moog had saved only one of the Kings’ three shots on goal. Melanson had stopped 10 of 12.

Messier’s goal at 8:50 of the second period gave the Oilers the lead for good.

The Kings subsequently had a power play nullified on a penalty to Robitaille. One second from an Edmonton power play, Anderson was called for holding, giving the Kings a brief 4-on-3 advantage.

The Kings still had time on their power play, but Nicholls was called for tripping to bring up another 4 on 4.

Nicholls’ penalty was another example of what Murphy called an “effort penalty.” Translation: A penalty that is the result of an extra effort, rather than a stupid mistake.

Kurri scored at 13:28 to give the Oilers a 4-2 lead at the end of the period.

At that point, down by two goals, the Kings still had a chance and were playing with effort. Against the Oilers, however, more than that is necessary.

“Bernie Nicholls played better than good tonight,” Williams said. “We all have to do that from now on. Twenty of us have to play great.”

King Notes

The Kings and Oilers play today at noon in the Forum. The game will be broadcast on the Prime Ticket Network and KLAC (570). . . . Mark Messier and Paul Coffey collided in the pregame warm-up. Coffey, who has a shoulder injury, wasn’t scheduled to play. Messier played but said he felt “foggy.”