‘The Great One’ Beats the Not So Great Ones, 6-3

The Kings are finding it awfully difficult to defeat a national monument. They wonder what to do other than play hard, which they did Sunday afternoon. They have agonized about what else there is to be done about The Great One.

They still wonder. The Kings matched the Edmonton Oilers in effort and intensity Sunday but, in the face of a masterful effort from Wayne Gretzky, they lost the fourth game of their Stanley Cup playoff series, 6-3, before a Forum crowd of 11,545. The Oilers now lead the best-of-seven series, 3-1.

“We had a great effort today, an honest effort,” King Coach Mike Murphy said. “Everybody on the team came to play and we played well. We were in control almost all afternoon.”

From the back of a crowd of reporters interviewing Murphy after the game came this quiet question: “If the teams were fairly even today, what was it that beat your team?”

“He’s about 5-10, 160 pounds,” Murphy said.

Peszky Gretzky. The Oiler center had one goal and four assists. He is the leading scorer in the NHL playoffs, with 13 points in four games. But it’s more than those points, it’s his presence on the ice that has confounded the Kings.

“The way I see it, I think he has played exceptionally well in the last three games,” Murphy said. “I haven’t seen him play any better. He’s been a force for them on the ice. He’s the significant difference.”

He certainly was, Sunday. When the Kings managed to raise their own level of play a notch or two and threatened to take the game away from the Oilers, it was Gretzky who stole the puck or made the improbable pass or netted the goal to put the game out of reach.

“Wayne is back to playing the way he can play,” Oiler Coach Glen Sather said. “That’s the difference in the hockey team.”

It is also the difference in the series. The Kings must win in Edmonton Tuesday night or be eliminated.

To the Kings’ credit Sunday, they could not have tried harder.

“I don’t think we can change much,” King captain Dave Taylor said.

Before Gretzky did his damage in the third period, during which he scored one goal and had three assists, the Kings were as close as they have come to being competitive since winning the first game in this series.

They gained an early lead and managed to stay within one goal until late in the final period. But they could not contain Gretzky.

The Kings gave up two penalties in the first four minutes but, instead of throwing the Oilers off their usual line changes, the power plays insured that Gretzky would have a fast start.

“I got a lot of ice time, “ Gretzky said. “I really felt into it.”

As they have done in patches throughout the series, the Kings checked well and played tight defense. Still, Gretzky managed to squirm through.

Bob Bourne scored the game’s first goal, at 6:38 in the second period, to give the Kings a 1-0 lead. The Oilers came back to tie the score when Kent Nilsson deflected Mark Messier’s shot into the King net.

The Oilers took a 2-1 lead with one minute to play in the period, scoring a goal that could stand as a blueprint for any team studying the attack pattern of Gretzky’s line.

Gretzky took the puck into the King zone and three Kings tailed him. That left Jari Kurri free. Gretzky dropped the puck off to Kurri, whose slap shot beat King goalie Rollie Melanson.

“He’s easy to read, he’s always back-handing passes,” King defenseman Steve Duchesne said. “But he’s tough to stop.”

The Kings have tried everything to stop him. Hitting Gretzky doesn’t work. When the Kings did bump Gretzky hard, in the first two games in Edmonton, the Oilers came at the Kings with renewed vigor and knocked the King scorers off their skates.

What to do?

“Sometimes, I think we give him too much respect,” King defenseman Jay Wells said. “We’ve got to bump him. We give him enough time to stop up and make a pass. We’ve got to go at him.”

What happens when Gretzky’s line attacks? As a football coach once said about the forward pass in football, three things can happen and two of them are bad: 1) Gretzky can pass to either Esa Tikkanen or to Kurri; 2) Gretzky can keep the puck, or 3) the Kings can take the puck away from Gretzky. Often, they can’t.

The Oilers do not come into a zone like other teams. The Oilers head in straight then zig-zag across the ice, leaving defenders reeling in confusion.

Gretzky, skating with the puck, draws the Kings out of their defensive lanes.

“We have to be more disciplined, we have to stay with our man,” Duchesne said. “We have to read the criss-crossing.”

On Sunday, the Kings defended as well as they have in the series. It did no good.

King rookie Jimmy Carson struck for the tying goal, making the score 2-2, with only 39 seconds left in the second period. Carson skated up the right side and, with defenseman Reijo Ruotsalainen all over him, Carson shot to beat goalie Grant Fuhr.

It was the only period in which the Kings outshot the Oilers--12-8. Overall, the Oilers again outshot the Kings, 37-26. Melanson, who played brilliantly, made 30 saves. Fuhr, who played equally well, made 23.

The third period was wide open, and Gretzky was in complete control.

He assisted on the period’s first goal, from Steve Smith. He assisted on the period’s second goal, from Tikkanen.

Down by two goals, the Kings came back. Duchesne stick-handled his way to a goal at 8:15 to cut the Oilers’ lead to one, at 4-3.

Gretzky set up the next Oiler goal, another perfect pass to Tikkanen. That goal was another example of Gretzky’s touch. From the right circle, he threaded a pass to Tikkanen on the left side of the net.

The Kings pulled Melanson with 26 seconds left in the game. It was then that the Oilers applied the coup de grace, with a goal into the empty net.

Not surprisingly, it was scored by The Great One.

King Notes

If the Kings win in Edmonton, Game 6 will be played in the Forum Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the sixth game, if necessary, will go on sale Wednesday. . . . The Kings must win the next three games in order to win the Smythe Division semifinal. . . . Neither team scored on the power play, both had four chances.