Kings Beaten by Flames, 4-1, as Tension Mounts

A transcript of his words would show that Wayne Gretzky, once again, was assuring reporters that:

--He has no problem playing for King Coach Robbie Ftorek.

--Contrary to rampant rumors, he did not have a heated discussion with Ftorek after he was benched at the start of the third period of Wednesday’s game at Detroit.

For good measure, Gretzky added an optimistic perspective to the Kings’ 4-1 loss to the Calgary Flames Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 20,002 at the Olympic Saddledome. He pointed out that the Kings played a good game against the team that is leading not only the Smythe Division, but the entire National Hockey League.

He also pointed out that the Kings finished 18th overall last season and that now they are playing for first place in the league for the first time.

Losing on the road to a team that stretched its winning streak to seven games and its record to 16-4-3 was no disgrace. The Kings (15-8) are a new team since Gretzky signed on.

So why was he sitting at his locker looking so forlorn? Why was he making these speeches in a barely audible whisper? Why was he not more convincing?

If there is no problem between the coach and the superstar, why do these stories keep cropping up? And why are some so quick to draw a comparison to the unhappy relationship between Magic Johnson and Paul Westhead that led to the firing of the Laker coach?

If the coach and the superstar don’t get along, that’s serious.

Yet Ftorek, sticking by his rule of treating all players the same, said: “No more serious than if the coach and another player don’t along.”

Ftorek would not give a direct answer to whether there had, or had not, been a discussion--heated, friendly or otherwise--between him and Gretzky after he benched Gretzky for almost 8 minutes at the start of the third period Wednesday night.

Ftorek had been upset with Gretzky for breaking his stick on the goal post in frustration at the end of the second period because he felt responsible for giving up a goal. It’s a fact that Gretzky, who had 6 points in the Kings’ 8-3 victory, spent all that time on the bench. The question is whether he and Ftorek discussed it.

“Maybe something happened; maybe nothing happened. Nobody knows,” Ftorek said.

Meaning that no one outside the team knows.

“Whatever happens in our locker room stays in our locker room,” Ftorek said. “Anything that happens behind closed doors should stay there.”

Asked if there had been even a minor problem between him and Gretzky, Ftorek said: “Big, small or indifferent, whatever happened or didn’t happen, we’d like to keep it within the team.”

Gretzky tried to downplay the situation, saying: “I miss a shift and everyone panics.”

But it was more than just a shift. And it seemed interesting, then, that Gretzky played a whopping 31 minutes 26 seconds Saturday night, not missing a shift, a power play or a penalty-killing span.

Ftorek laughed off any connection between Gretzky’s playing time on Wednesday and his playing time Saturday, saying: “I didn’t even think about the last game tonight. Those things are day to day.”

As for whether there is an ongoing problem between him and Gretzky, Ftorek said: “From my viewpoint, there isn’t a problem.”

And Gretzky is still scoring. He scored the Kings’ only goal Saturday, and it kept the game within reach until the final minutes.

Joe Nieuwendyk gave the Flames a 2-1 lead at 7:19 of the second period, so the Kings were within easy striking distance until Joe Mullen made it 3-1 with his second goal at 14:55 of the third period.

Ftorek pulled goalie Glenn Healy at 18:33 to give the Kings an extra attacker, but Healy came back at 18:44 after Doug Gilmour scored on the empty net.

Gretzky’s goal upset the Calgary fans, because they, and almost everyone else on the ice, had thought the play had ended when goalie Mike Vernon and a small committee of Flames and Kings went into a clinch around the left post. They assumed that the puck was frozen in the tangle. But Gretzky, who was swooping around the back of the net, had the puck all along and flipped it into the gaping net at 12:54.

Mullen’s first goal, which tied the game, 1-1, at 15:31, was pretty upsetting to Healy.

Mullen was skating at Healy from the left wing when he fired a pass across the ice in the direction of Perry Berezan. But before the puck reached Berezan, it glanced off the skate of King defenseman Tim Watters and past Healy.

It was an intense, tight-checking game that led to a series of fights. Luc Robitaille chalked that up to the fact that the teams were playing for first place.

“It had the intensity of a playoff game,” Robitaille said.

Marty McSorley, who had spent 2 minutes in the penalty box for roughing in the second period and who was in for 5 minutes for fighting in the third period, when it was getting crowded in there, said that it’s just the way Calgary plays.

“They’re a very, very good hockey team, and they work hard defensively,” he said. “They also hold and slow the game. They make it really chippy.”

At one point in the third period, there were 5 Flames and 4 Kings in the penalty box.

“The last game we played here was a different game,” Ftorek said, referring to the game that the Kings lost, 11-4. “Tonight, they played it differently, because we’ve been scoring so many goals and because it was a close game. They played it tight.

“I thought we skated as well as we’ve skated in the last few games. They just played a very good game.”

King Notes

Rookie goalie Mark Fitzpatrick, who is 2-0 after victories at Chicago on the last trip and at Detroit on this trip, is expected to be in goal for the Kings at Vancouver tonight in a 5:05 p.m. game that will be broadcast on KLAC (570). There will be no telecast. The game at Vancouver will wrap up the Kings’ 4-game, 8-day trip.

Bernie Nicholls’ 17-game point-scoring streak and 10-game goal-scoring streak ended Saturday. The goal-scoring streak was the fourth-longest in modern NHL records. . . . Wayne Gretzky kept his point-scoring streak alive, though, stretching it to 23 games. He has at least a point in every game for the Kings this season.

Ken Baumgartner, who experienced dizziness Wednesday morning before the team left Philadelphia and was sent home to Los Angeles to be examined by Kings doctors, will rejoin the team today in Vancouver. . . . Luc Robitaille, whose right earlobe was stitched up after he almost lost it when a puck hit the side of his head during the second period of Wednesday’s game in Detroit, started Saturday night wearing a protective covering.