A VERY WELCOME ADDITION : New King Center Mike Allison, Acquired for His Defense, Is Off to a Fast Offensive Start

On the day he was told last month that he’d been traded to the Kings, Mike Allison made his way through the Toronto Maple Leafs’ dressing room, depositing glossies of himself in each locker.

He said later he wanted everyone to remember him.

Since arriving in Los Angeles, Allison has taken further steps to ensure that nobody in the Maple Leafs’ management, at least, would forget about him.

Branded as too slow in Toronto, where he watched 14 of the Maple Leafs’ first 29 games this season from the press box, Allison has filled what had been a pressing need by the Kings for a checking, defensive-minded center.

In addition, he has scored at a pace better than any other time in his eight-year National Hockey League career.

He had never scored more than 11 goals or had more than 16 assists in a season since he had 26 goals and 38 assists in 75 games of his rookie season of 1980-81 with the New York Rangers.

But in 15 games with the Kings, he has 9 goals and 7 assists.

Going into the Kings’ game against the Hartford Whalers tonight at the Forum, he has scored points in 10 straight games, twice as long as he’s ever gone. During the streak, he has 8 goals and 6 assists.

In other words, for the price--the Kings sent right winger Sean McKenna to Toronto--Allison has been a bargain for the Kings.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” said Gerry McNamara, general manager of the Maple Leafs.

“I never look in a trade to try to steal somebody,” said Rogie Vachon, the Kings’ general manager. “I try to make a trade that’s going to make an impact on the club.”

In the case of the personable, red-haired Allison, who predictably goes by the nickname of “Red,” Vachon seems to have done both.

While Allison has flourished with the increased playing time, McKenna hasn’t exactly floundered, but he hasn’t exactly prospered, either. Playing on the Maple Leafs’ fourth line, he has 1 goal and 3 assists.

Allison, 26, won’t say the trade saved his career, “but it sure has given it a boost. I really believe in the long run that I would have been back playing in Toronto. But (the Kings) sure have made things better for me. It’s been a real joy.”

Allison played so infrequently with the Maple Leafs this season that when he was told on Dec. 14 that McNamara wanted to meet with him, Allison thought he was being sent to the minors.

And, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad, he thought, because he’d finally get a chance to play with his older brother, Dave, who was signed by the Maple Leafs last summer and assigned to their American Hockey League affiliate at Newmarket, Canada.

On the two-acre island Mike owns on Lake Rainy near the Minnesota-Ontario border, Dave helped him build a cabin last summer, and the brothers grew closer last fall while playing less than an hour apart in Toronto and Newmarket.

“I was looking forward to playing with him,” Mike said.

Instead, McNamara told him he’d been traded to the Kings.

Disappointed at first--”I was really comfortable there, and was really enjoying being with my brother,” he said--Allison soon realized that the trade was probably best for his career.

“I looked at it as an opportunity to be a part of something,” he said. “I didn’t really feel like I was part of the team at Toronto.”

Robbie Ftorek, who replaced Mike Murphy as coach of the Kings less than a week earlier, called Allison later that night and told him that he would be used mainly in a defensive role with the Kings.

But, after scoring a goal in his first game, a 7-5 victory over the Edmonton Oilers that ended a seven-game King losing streak, Allison has rarely missed a shift.

Used to kill penalties and to take key faceoffs, he has also developed into a scorer. Playing on the power-play unit and on a line with Luc Robitaille, the Kings’ leading scorer, has helped, but Allison has also created his own opportunities.

Ftorek calls him “obstinate” in front of the opponents’ net.

“I haven’t gotten too many goals from farther than a foot outside the crease,” said Allison, who is strong and wiry at 6 foot 1 inch and 190 pounds, and is not averse to mixing it up inside. “I don’t look at myself as a scorer, that’s for sure.”

He said his increased production can be attributed to his increased playing time.

“They’re giving me a lot of opportunities,” he said of the Kings.

Why didn’t the Maple Leafs?

“At the start of the season, he wasn’t playing much and we were winning a few games,” said John Brophy, the Maple Leafs’ coach. “He didn’t get much ice time and he couldn’t get back his timing. He’s a big man and he’s got to play a lot to get his skating up to par. . . . “He was getting frustrated. When he did get a chance to play, he tried to do too much, and then he ended up doing not as much as he should because he’d try to put a whole game into a few shifts.”

McNamara said he was too slow to play on the wing, where the Maple Leafs had used him for the last 1 1/2 seasons.

“Speed isn’t one of his assets but he gets to where he’s supposed to be,” Ftorek said of Allison. “If you know where you’re supposed to be and (because of that) you can get there before the other guy, that’s what’s important.”

Allison said he doesn’t begrudge the Maple Leafs, and he said he understands how McKenna must feel.

In the summer of 1986, Allison was traded from the Rangers to the Maple Leafs for Walt Poddubny, who went to New York and had the best season of his career, leading the Rangers with 87 points.

“I don’t want to show the Leafs that they made a mistake,” Allison said. “What I want to do is show something to the people (in Los Angeles) who put themselves out on a limb--such as the GM and the coaching staff.”

So far, he’s done that.

And more.