Healy Puts Stop on Detroit : Kings’ Goalie Faces 43 Shots in a 6-4 Win Over Red Wings

When the pucks and the fists finally stopped flying, the Kings had a 6-4 victory over the Detroit Red Wings, a sweep of the 3-game season series and a list of rave reviews on goalie Glenn Healy.

Detroit Coach Jacques Demers noted the 43 shots (by conservative count) that his team sent at Healy and concluded: “That was as good a performance in the nets as I have seen in a long time. That guy was outstanding. I thought we played very well, but the bottom line is that they have another win and we have another loss.”

The Kings’ record rose to 21-11-1 and they’re off to Minnesota for the final game of this trip.

The Red Wings, who had won 4 straight games at home and had drawn a standing-room-only crowd of 19,875 to Joe Louis Arena Friday night, came out determined not to give up the sweep--but give it up they did as their record fell to 17-10-4.

“We had embarrassed this team in our opening game (8-2) and in the other game here (8-3), and we knew they were a lot better than they had shown us in those games,” the Kings’ Bernie Nicholls said. “So we expected them to come out and show the kind of intensity they showed . . .

“The outshot us, they outplayed us, but we did it . . . Glenny played a great game for us. That’s why he leads the league in wins (with 16).”

And Nicholls, who leads the league in goals scored, labeled No. 35, the goal that broke a 3-3 tie, one of his “nicest” of the season.

Healy had thrown himself to the ice to stop a shot by Petr Klima, but the puck ended up between Healy and the open goal when defenseman Steve Duchesne swooped through the crease and picked it up, sending it out to Nicholls, who took it the length of the ice. He shot from the right circle and it went between the legs of Detroit goalie Glen Hanlon to give the Kings the lead at 11:10 of the third period.

Healy said that Klima’s shot had hit him in the throat. “I don’t know who it was that went down and scored for us, but that was a beautiful goal,” Healy said. “That took the wind right out of their sails.”

Less than a minute after Nicholls’ “beautiful” goal, Mike Allison gave the Kings a 5-3 lead. The Kings were firing on Hanlon when Allison, who was on his knees in front of the goal, poked in the rebound of a shot by Bob Carpenter to send the fans filing toward the exits.

Demers had pulled his goalie when Steve Yzerman threaded a shot through traffic to make it a 5-4 game with 42 seconds to play.

Wayne Gretzky scored into an empty net from the red line to beat the buzzer and give the Kings their final margin.

It was a game that had fans outside the locker room wondering about the odds that these teams might be matched again in the playoffs.

“The guys wanted to win real bad; they put a lot of grit into it,” Coach Robbie Ftorek of the Kings said. “There was intensity in the whole game. There were a lot of good hits, legal hits.”

The Red Wings led, 1-0, on Paul MacLean’s first-period goal, but the Kings struck for 2 quick scores to open the second period, and the intensity level took a jump up.

John Tonelli slapped a hard shot from the top of the right face-off circle just 1:27 into the period, and Dave Taylor took a pass from Luc Robitaille and scored 31 seconds later.

The period then bogged down in a series of fights and penalties. There were 58 minutes in penalties handed out in the second period alone. King Dale DeGray left with a slight concussion suffered when he skated into Shawn Burr midway through the period in one of the few collisions that was not intentional.

The biggest confrontation of the period began with a group clinch against the glass that disintegrated into a batch of little fights.

Out of that, King defenseman Ken Baumgartner was assessed a 10-minute misconduct penalty as was Red Wing defenseman Rick Zombo. The Kings’ Allison got 2 minutes for interference and Bob Logan 2 minutes for a bench minor. Detroit’s Burr got 2 minutes for roughing.

During the resulting power play, Gerard Gallant scored for Detroit on a centering pass from Lee Norwood to tie the game, 2-2, at 18:26.

Defenseman Tim Watters then put the Kings back in front with his first goal in ages. “How long has it been,” Watters wondered aloud. “I know I didn’t have a point last year.”

Last season, Watters played in 36 games for Winnipeg and didn’t score. Until Friday night, he had not scored since the 1986-87 season.

Asked if thought there might have been the element of surprise working in his favor, Watters said: “Yeah. It surprised the hell out of me.”

Also working in his favor was the fact that the pass came from Gretzky. “When you’re out there with Wayne and Bernie on a 4-on-4, they (the opponents) have to play in a little bit tentatively,” Watters said. “There was a lot of open ice.”

So Watters broke toward the goal, and Gretzky threw him the pass.

“I’ve had some other chances that didn’t go,” Watters said. “It was nice.”

Healy did not think Zombo’s goal that tied the game for Detroit at 3-3 was a bit nice. As soon as the red light came on, Healy chased down the nearest official to wage his complaint.

The problem? “He kicked it in,” Healy said. “It deflected off his skate. The guy was right there. It was a horrible call . . . and on their second goal, they were 5 feet offside.”

In the end, it didn’t matter.

Healy was the man of the hour. In fact, he was invited to make his way to Minnesota with owner Bruce McNall in McNall’s private jet.

King Notes

Detroit’s attendance Friday night was 600 more than the listed capacity of the arena. The Red Wings sell standing-room tickets. Detroit is averaging 19,602 in an arena that seats 19,275 . . . The Kings called up wings Dave Pasin and Bob Logan from their New Haven, Conn., affiliate Thursday. Both were in Detroit in time to practice Friday morning. Wayne McBean was scratched Friday night but was not sent back down. He watched the game from the press box . . . Detroit goalie Greg Stefan missed the game with a bad back. Stefan had given up 16 goals in the first 2 games against the Kings but he is the last goalie to have shut out the Kings, on March 12, 1986 . . . After missing Wednesday night’s game at Pittsburgh because of his grandmother’s funeral, Wayne Gretzky rejoined the team Friday morning in time for practice . . . Detroit right wing Bob Probert had been suspended Thursday for three games as a result of a match penalty in an altercation with Toronto goalie Allan Bester last Saturday at Detroit.