A 50-50 CHANCE : Nicholls Needs 3 Goals Tonight to Reach Plateau

Bernie Nicholls has 1 game left in which to accomplish something no one has ever done while playing for the Kings: Score 50 goals in 50 games.

To do it, the 27-year-old center must get 3 goals tonight against the Vancouver Canucks at the Forum. If he can pull off that hat trick, expect at least one fedora or fez or baseball cap or beret to be launched onto the ice.

“I’ll be thinking about it,” said Nicholls, who has 47 goals in 49 games and Wednesday was added to the Campbell Conference All-Star team by Edmonton Coach Glen Sather, joining teammates Luc Robitaille, Wayne Gretzky and Steve Duchesne, who were elected as starters.

“Three in a game--I’ve done it before, you know.”

That he has, 3 times this season--against Winnipeg, Philadelphia and St. Louis--and 13 times in his career. But against the Canucks this season, Nicholls has only 1 goal in 4 games, and that was an empty-netter. In his career against Vancouver, Nicholls has only 16 goals in 51 games.

“It won’t be easy,” said Nicholls, who did not score in Tuesday’s 4-4 tie at Washington, a game in which he missed the last 8 minutes 21 seconds after drawing 10-minute misconduct and game misconduct penalties from referee Paul Stewart.

“They’re a very good defensive team. Vancouver plays well against us. It’s almost always a low-scoring game when they play us.

“But stranger things have happened. I’m just going out there and give it my best shot.”

Minnesota’s Dino Ciccarelli is the only NHL player this season to have scored as many as 3 goals in a game against the Canucks, who have the league’s third-stingiest defense. Ciccarelli had his hat trick Nov. 17 in a 7-6 North Star victory.

Only five players in National Hockey League history are in the 50-50 club. Maurice (Rocket) Richard of the Montreal Canadiens was the first, scoring 50 in 50 games in 1944-45. Thirty-six years later, in 1980-81, Mike Bossy of the New York Islanders did the same.

The next season, Gretzky scored 50 in a record 39 games for Edmonton, the first of 3 times that Gretzky did it in fewer than 50 games. He scored 50 in 42 games in 1983-84, and 50 in 49 games in 1984-85, the same season teammate Jari Kurri scored 50 in 50.

Pittsburgh’s Mario Lemieux joined that elite group last week when he scored No. 50 in Game No. 43. In 3 games last week, Lemieux, the league’s leading scorer with 129 points in 45 games, had a hand in all 12 goals the Penguins scored, putting 3 in the net himself and assisting on 9 others.

The King record for fastest 50 goals is held by left wing Charlie Simmer, who accomplished the feat in 51 games in 1980-81. Simmer, who later played for Boston and Pittsburgh and now plays in West Germany, broke his leg and finished that season with 56 goals.

Nicholls, who has 102 points, has 9 goals and 5 assists in his last 14 games. He scored goals in 10 straight games earlier this season, the longest such streak in the league. He had 30 goals in his first 26 games, 17 in the last 23, and is almost certain to break Marcel Dionne’s club record of 59 goals in a season, set in 1978-79.

King owner Bruce McNall, on the trades that brought center Steve Kasper and left wing Jay Miller to the team from Boston:

“We’re going for the (Stanley) Cup now, that’s my attitude. There were only a couple of things we were missing: One was toughness and the other was a player with the ability to play some defense. We got two perfect guys, and they also bring us character and class.”

Miller, the former Bruin tough guy who played for King assistant coach Cap Raeder when both were at the University of New Hampshire, blanched in the team’s hotel lobby at Washington Wednesday when he saw a newspaper headline proclaiming Gretzky’s opposition to fighting in hockey.

“I’m going to have to talk to the guy,” Miller said in mock distress. “I’m not making $2 million a year like he is.”

Miller, who had 2 goals and 4 assists in 37 games with the Bruins, assisted on Luc Robitaille’s goal against the Capitals Tuesday.

“I had some real cobwebs out there,” said Miller, who had been playing sparingly with Boston. “But this was Fantasyland. The only thing that could have topped this is if I had been out there with Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier.

“But there I was, with Bernie Nicholls, 47 goals, and Luc Robitaille, with 33 goals, and me, with 6 points, and I said, ‘Hey guys, give me the puck.’ ”

Sentiment in the King dressing room ran heavily in favor of the trade that sent Bobby Carpenter to the Bruins for Kasper and Miller.

“A great deal,” Nicholls said. “This is the first time the Kings have ever had a great defensive center. (Kasper) is the best there is at what he does.

“We also needed a big, tough winger and we definitely got that, too.”

Gretzky: “Any time you can get players from a winning tradition, who know how to play winning hockey, it helps you. There’s no question we needed toughness, and we needed to get another defensive player.”

Miller and Kasper both went to the Stanley Cup finals last season with the Bruins.

Kasper, who won the Selke award as the league’s top defensive forward in 1982, derived much of his reputation for his skill in shadowing Gretzky. But as he noted Tuesday night, it has been several years since he was given the sole responsibility of dogging Gretzky’s every stride.

“It’s been 4 or 5 years since I’ve played against Wayne,” he said. “During the finals last season, people talked about me playing against Wayne, but it wasn’t so. The Oilers had so much balance, you couldn’t just focus on one player.

“And no one stops Wayne Gretzky by himself.”

Kasper, a Bruin since he was 19, said it was wrenching to leave Boston, where he said he had intended to end his career. His wife, he said, has never been west of Calgary.

But this season also was the first time he had experienced losing as a Bruin, and it wasn’t pleasant.

“The game of hockey no longer was fun,” Kasper said. “Hockey-wise, the trade was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.”