Kings Get Lucky as Nicholls’ Goal With 5 Seconds Left Ties Bruins, 3-3

Too often this season, the Kings have claimed blindly to be victims of misfortune.

That wasn’t the case Thursday night at Boston Garden, where their luck was all good when it mattered most in a 3-3 tie with the Boston Bruins before a crowd of 13,906.

Bernie Nicholls, who faces a National Hockey League disciplinary hearing today for swinging his stick at Ulf Samuelsson of the Hartford Whalers Wednesday night, scored with five seconds left in regulation for the Kings.

Nicholls scored the power-play goal on a rebound only 54 seconds after the Kings, who haven’t won at Boston Garden since Jan. 24, 1981, had given up the go-ahead goal to Bob Joyce.

The Kings were awarded the manpower advantage with 35 seconds left after Cam Neely was called for interfering with King goaltender Rollie Melanson, who said later with a grin that he actually was the one who interfered with Neely.

Melanson, who stopped five shots in the five-minute overtime period, said he jabbed Neely with the butt end of his stick, hoping to elicit a reaction.

When Neely bumped him in retaliation, it caught the eye of referee Ron Hoggarth, putting the Kings in position to earn a tie they regarded as highly as any victory.

“It feels like a win,” Nicholls said. “We were very fortunate to get a tie out of it.”

Melanson said he had “created” the penalty against Neely.

Neely didn’t disagree.

“It was a bad penalty on my part,” he said. “It cost us the (extra) point. But I saw he was giving me the butt end, and I’m not going to take that. I didn’t really hit him that hard to deserve a penalty, I didn’t think, but Hoggarth thought otherwise.”

The Kings called time out at that point, returned to the ice, pulled Melanson after the faceoff and swarmed the Boston net with six skaters.

Nicholls, stationed just outside the crease to the left of the net, took a rebound of a shot by Jim Fox, shifted the puck a bit to his right and lifted it over goaltender Reggie Lemelin.

“We had a lot of pressure,” Nicholls said. “Jimmy made a nice shot, Reggie went down and saved it. He was still down. I got the puck and I knew I just had to get it up. I got it between his stick and his body.

“I had time. I knew where I wanted to go and I put it right there.”

Later, though, Nicholls said he really didn’t know how much time was left.

“I knew there wasn’t much because we only had (35) seconds to start with,” he said. “I just hoped we had at least one (second) left.”

The tie ended a three-game losing streak for the Kings, who are 1-4-1 since Feb. 24, but they have gained three points on the Vancouver Canucks, losers of nine straight games.

They played a “good, tight game” against the Bruins, in the words of Boston’s All-Star defenseman, Ray Bourque, making the tie a little bit easier to take for the Bruins, who are winless in their last four games and hadn’t even scored in their last two.

“It’s not like we dominated,” Bourque said.

The Bruins, though, lost a 2-1 lead when Nicholls, who has seven goals in four games, intercepted a weak clearing pass by Lemelin and scored with 4:35 left to pull the Kings even.

Lemelin, who carried the puck behind the net before making the pass as he was bumped from behind by Luc Robitaille, scrambled in vain to get back into position but didn’t make it back into the crease until Nicholls’ shot from the left circle was already in the net.

“Luc came up from behind and whacked him, and that made him force the pass,” Nicholls said of Lemelin. “I know he didn’t want to get it out like that.”

It wasn’t the last fortunate play of the night for the Kings.

King Notes

Jimmy Carson’s first-period goal was his 44th of the season. . . . Ron Duguay, who does not wear a helmet, was high-sticked above his right eye in the first period by Allen Pedersen. The cut required eight stitches. . . . Craig Janney, a former U.S. Olympian who joined the Bruins last week, scored his first NHL goal on a weird play in the first period. As goaltender Rollie Melanson came out to make a poke check, the puck appeared to carom off Janney’s face and into the net. Janney, who fell to the ice, was cut badly enough below his left eye to require three stitches, and the Kings’ Tom Laidlaw was called for a major high-sticking penalty. Replays, though, showed that Laidlaw’s stick never hit Janney. . . . The Kings are 0-31-3 in games in which they’ve trailed entering the third period.

Goalie Glenn Healy, on the Kings’ attempt to make a deal for goaltender Andy Moog, who was traded Monday from the Edmonton Oilers to the Bruins: “Of course it bothers me. It’s my job. If they’re trying to get another goaltender, obviously they’re not happy with what they have here. But for us to be used as scapegoats is ridiculous.” . . . Bob Carpenter has scored only one goal in 16 games since returning to the lineup Feb. 2 after missing eight games with a shoulder injury. . . . Tim Tookey, who has not played since injuring his right knee in November, is scheduled to have arthroscopic surgery on both knees today at Centinela Hospital. . . . Jay Wells aggravated a groin injury and did not play. . . . The Kings will play six of their next seven games at the Forum, starting Sunday night against the St. Louis Blues.