An Ugly Tie Is as Good as a Win for Kings

The alarmingly rapid descent of the Vancouver Canucks to the far reaches of the Smythe Division standings and out of playoff contention was momentarily slowed Wednesday night.

Before a crowd of 11,378 at the Forum, the Canucks skated to a 3-3 tie with the Kings, whose own prospects of making the National Hockey League playoffs remain bright only because of the almost frightening nose dive by the Canucks in the last 3 1/2 weeks.

Though the Canucks, who are winless in their last 12 games, put great importance on this game, it actually mattered very little.

Even if the Canucks were to make a miraculous turnaround and win their remaining six games, the Kings could qualify for postseason play with a 2-5 record the rest of the way.

In fact, a victory Friday night at Vancouver would end the suspense and put the Kings into a Smythe Division semifinal series next month against the division champion.

The Kings are only 3-4-2 in the last 3 1/2 weeks, but that’s been good enough to gain 6 points on the Canucks, who are 0-10-2 since beating the New York Rangers on Feb. 21.

The tie, then, put the Kings one step closer to the playoffs.

And, conversely, it put the Canucks one step closer to elimination.

“It’s just too little, too late,” Canuck Coach Bob McCammon said. “You’ve got to just hope, and when you’re hoping on a shoestring, there’s not a lot of hope, in my mind.”

The Canucks, who had scored on only 2 of 34 power-play opportunities in six previous games against the Kings, took a 1-0 lead just 3 minutes 58 seconds into the game after Craig Laughlin was penalized for tripping the Canucks’ Garth Butcher.

Ian Kidd scored the power-play goal, taking a pass in the left circle from Barry Pederson and firing a 25-foot shot past goaltender Rollie Melanson.

The Kings, meanwhile, had four manpower advantages in the first period but were unable to score as goaltender Steve Weeks stopped 18 shots.

“I didn’t like the first period,” said Coach Robbie Ftorek of the Kings. “We didn’t have any flow. It was mumbo-jumbo. It wasn’t fluid. It was helter-skelter out there.”

He liked the last two periods a little better, though the Canucks scored a second power-play goal at 6:48 of the second period to take a 2-0 lead. With Steve Duchesne in the penalty box for holding Tony Tanti, Greg Adams took a pass from Petri Skriko and slid a 10-foot shot under Melanson from just outside the crease.

The Kings finally got a shot past Weeks at 8:53. Jimmy Carson, skating through the slot toward the net, redirected a shot by Duchesne over Weeks’ right leg and under the goaltender’s stick for his 46th goal of the season.

Carson is hoping to become only the second U.S.-born player to score 50 goals in a season.

Phil Sykes pulled the Kings even at 13:09 of the second period after a wild shot from the right point by Dean Kennedy was knocked down by the Canucks’ Brian Bradley in the bottom of the right circle.

Sykes pounced on the puck just outside the crease, wheeled and slid a shot past Weeks and into the far side of the net to tie the game at 2-2.

It stayed that way until 4:18 of the third period, when the inability of Canuck defenseman Doug Lidster to grab the puck out of the air enabled the Kings to score.

Paul Fenton chased down the puck for the Kings in the left corner and lifted a pass toward the Vancouver net that was mishandled by Lidster, who inadvertently left the puck in front of the net. A charging Mike Allison banged it in for the Kings.

The Canucks, though, weren’t finished. Bradley pulled them even at 9:13, retrieving the puck behind the Kings’ net, bringing it around to the left side and muscling it past Melanson for the goal that made it 3-3.

The teams then went to the five-minute overtime period, which the Kings understandably played with the utmost caution.

King Notes

The Kings and Canucks meet for the final time this season Friday night at Vancouver, where the Kings ended an eight-game winless streak Feb. 28 with a 2-0 victory. Rookie goaltender Glenn Healy was called on to stop only 13 shots in gaining his first National Hockey League shutout. The Kings, though, still are only 1-6-2 in Vancouver since Jan. 17, 1986. . . . Ken Hammond, who sprained his right knee and ankle in Sunday night’s 7-6 victory over the St. Louis Blues, is not expected to return to the Kings’ lineup before next week. . . . Replacing Hammond is Denis Larocque, who was recalled from the Kings’ American Hockey League affiliate at New Haven, Conn., and made his NHL debut Wednesday night. . . . If Bernie Nicholls’ five-game suspension is not overturned, it will start Friday night. Nicholls was suspended for swinging his stick at Ulf Samuelsson of the Hartford Whalers in a game March 9 at Hartford, Conn.