Kings Get a Playoff Berth--and a Victory : Carson Has Hat Trick and Kontos Five Assists Against Chicago, 9-5

The suspense ended for the Kings even before the game started.

The Calgary Flames had already wrapped up a 6-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks at Calgary, eliminating the Canucks from playoff contention and qualifying the Kings for a Smythe Division semifinal playoff series next month against the division champion Flames.

That done, the Kings, minus six regulars, went out and routed the Chicago Blackhawks, 9-5, as Jimmy Carson scored three goals before an appreciative crowd of 14,479 at the Forum.

The hat trick, Carson’s fourth of the season, gave him 51 goals, making him the second U.S.-born player and second teen-ager in National Hockey League history to surpass the 50-goal plateau.

Each time he scored, the 19-year-old native of Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., was serenaded by Forum organist Joe Tripoli’s rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA.”

“Teen Angel” might have been more appropriate.

“I have many more years to get 50 as an American but no more to get them as a teen-ager,” Carson said.

Chris Kontos, acquired in a trade with the Pittsburgh Penguins last month and recalled from the minors less than two weeks ago to replace suspended center Bernie Nicholls, assisted on all of Carson’s goals, scored one of his own and tied club records with six points and five assists.

“These nights don’t come too often,” Kontos said. “I’ve never even come close to a record before.”

In the last minute of the first period, Kontos won a faceoff in the Kings’ end from the Blackhawks’ Troy Murray, sending the puck into the left corner to Steve Duchesne, who passed it ahead to Carson.

Carson, who had scored his 49th goal on a rebound earlier in the period, took Duchesne’s pass at the red line, skated in alone and beat goaltender Darren Pan for his 50th goal.

“When I saw Chris get the faceoff,” Carson said, “I just took off. Steve got it to me, and I just cruised in.”

Carson was given a standing ovation, but instead of acknowledging the crowd, he put his head down for the ensuing faceoff.

“I just wanted to get a few more goals,” he said.

Carson joins teammate Bob Carpenter, who scored 53 goals for the Washington Capitals in the 1984-85 season, as the only U.S.-born players who have scored 50 goals in a season.

Wayne Gretzky, who scored 51 goals as a 19-year-old for the Edmonton Oilers in the 1979-80 season, is the only other teen-ager to reach the 50-goal plateau.

The Kings jumped on the struggling Blackhawks from the beginning, sending them on the way to their fifth straight loss by outshooting them, 19-8, in the first period and opening a 4-1 lead.

It was 2-0 after 6 minutes 4 seconds. Ken Baumgartner took a pass from Ron Duguay and scored on a 45-foot shot from the left point at 3:13, and Carson, who banged a shot off Pang’s arm from behind the goal line, scored at 6:04.

Everett Sanipass scored on a deflection for the Blackhawks at 7:26, but when Dave Taylor scored on a rebound of a shot by Duchesne at 9:25, the Kings had outshot the Blackhawks, 16-3.

Carson, who scored his 50th goal at 19:05, scored again 32 seconds into the second period, but the goal was disallowed because referee Denis Morel had blown the play dead. “The referee told me he lost sight of the puck, so he had to blow the whistle,” Carson said.

Only 17 seconds later, though, Carson scored again, and this time it counted. With Chicago’s Duane Sutter in the penalty box for roughing, Carson took a pass from Kontos and fired a 25-foot shot from the right circle between Pang’s legs.

By the end of the period, the Kings’ lead was 7-3 as Dirk Graham and Dan Vincelette scored for the Blackhawks, and Carpenter and Luc Robitaille scored for the Kings. Robitaille’s goal was his 46th.

Steve Larmer scored at 11:42 of the third period to cut the Blackhawks’ deficit to 7-4, but the Kings got power-play goals from Kontos and Carpenter in a 25-second span later in the period.

Wilson added a power-play goal for the Blackhawks with 46 seconds left.

King Notes

Chris Kontos is only the fourth King player to get five assists in a game and only the fifth to get six points in a game. The last King to have a six-point night was Bernie Nicholls, who had 3 goals and 3 assists in a game against the Buffalo Sabres last Nov. 22. The last King to have 5 assists in a game was Dave Taylor, who did it against the Chicago Blackhawks on Nov. 4, 1979. . . . Tickets for Games 3 and 4 of a Smythe Division semifinal playoff series, to be played April 9 and 10 at the Forum, will go on sale today at 10 a.m. at the Forum and at all TicketMaster outlets. . . . The Kings will meet their first-round playoff opponent, the Calgary Flames, in their final home game of the regular season Wednesday night at the Forum. . . . Only the fourth-place team from the Norris Division, either the Toronto Maple Leafs or the Minnesota North Stars, will enter the playoffs with a worse record than the Kings’. . . . Bob Carpenter’s second-period goal was his first in 15 games and only his second in 25. He scored again in the third period. . . Eric Germain, recalled last week from the Kings’ American Hockey League affiliate at New Haven, Conn., made his National Hockey League debut. . . . John Hiatt, whose “Bring the Family” was one of the most highly acclaimed pop albums of 1987, sang the national anthem.