Kings Are Caught a Goalie Short, 4-3 : With Hrudey Out, Edmonton Wins

On the hottest April 5 in the history of Los Angeles, with temperatures outside topping 100 degrees, the ice at the Forum stayed frozen just long enough for the defending Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers to beat the Kings, 4-3, in the first game of their seven-game playoff series.

As the game heated up, so did the Forum. The ice got softer, and the game got slower.

Oiler captain Mark Messier thought it was hotter, even, than the Stanley Cup game last season when the air-conditioning, and then the lights, went out in Boston Garden.

“I’ve played in some hot rinks in late May, but this was the hottest,” Messier said. “The ice was getting soft. The ice was slow at the end. We weren’t getting any glide at all.”

But the heat didn’t give the edge to the Oilers.

Nor did the lingering emotion of the Aug. 9 trade that sent Wayne Gretzky from the Oilers to the Kings.

Gretzky was the focus through eight games of the regular-season series that the Kings and the Oilers split, with all eyes on how Gretzky handled playing against the team he had led to four Stanley Cup championships in the last five years.

But the first game of this Smythe Division semifinal series did not turn on Gretzky’s play.

Attention turned to the position that Gretzky has been insisting all along is the key to the playoffs--the goalie.

Kelly Hrudey was suffering from the flu and could not play. So, Glenn Healy got the call.

And Healy held his own against Oiler goalie Grant Fuhr until the final minutes.

The Oilers scored two consecutive goals with about four minutes left to win.

The tying goal was scored on a lucky bounce. The winning goal was scored by Craig Simpson with 2 minutes 47 seconds left, when he put the finishing touch on the Oilers’ three-on-two breakaway by firing the puck into the right corner of the Kings’ net.

“It was a great play all around,” Simpson said. “Messier beat a guy at mid-ice and got the pass to (Glenn) Anderson and he hesitated long enough to hold the goaltender in his crease. I was able to get it by him with just a touch pass.”

Messier said: “There was nothing Healy could do on that.”

Every other goal of the game had been answered, but not this one.

As reporters asked Gretzky how the Kings had let the game get away, Gretzky could only shrug.

“They scored one more goal than we did. . . . Both teams played pretty disciplined. It’s going to be a tight, bump-and-grind, physical series. I think we’re making it a pretty good series for the fans.”

A sellout crowd of 16,005, many wearing their home-team colors and even more swinging the white King kerchiefs that were passed out at the game, got the playoffs off to a rousing start Wednesday night at the Forum.

A smattering of applause and an audible groan greeted the announcement that Healy would be starting in goal for the Kings.

It was not announced in the Forum that Kelly Hrudey, the goalie acquired from the Islanders in a late-season trade, was in the dressing room suffering from the flu.

After all the buildup of Hrudey being the experienced goalie that the Kings would need in the playoffs, the team had to begin with the younger Healy, who has gone 0-4 since Hrudey’s acquisition.

John Tonelli was out with the flu, too, and the Kings are waiting anxiously to see if anyone else calls in sick.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gretzky said. “Maybe it’s the heat and the fact that we practice in a cold arena. I don’t know.”

Healy, who still is not 100% as he recovers from the flu that kept him out of the final game of the regular season at Vancouver Sunday, said that it took him four days to return.

Gretzky credited Healy’s performance, saying, “He made some great saves.”

Through the first period, it was 1-1 after the Kings traded power play-goal with the Oilers.

The Kings scored first when Chris Kontos deflected Bernie Nicholls’ shot from the top of the circle past Oiler goalie Grant Fuhr at 1:01. At the time, Craig Muni was in the penalty box for tripping Wayne Gretzky.

But Thomass Jonsson evened the score by putting his own rebound past Healy, who had sprawled on the ice to make the reach for the first save at 16:54. The Oilers had that power play because of a holding call on Kings defenseman Tim Watters.

At the end of the second period it was 2-2 after the Kings and Oilers again traded power-play goals.

Charlie Huddy gave the Oilers a 2-1 lead at 13:58 on a controversial play. The goal either hit the front of the crossbar and bounced away or hit the inside of the net just behind the crossbar and bounced back out. The television replay was inconclusive but the goal judge turned on the red light and the officials, after conferring, decided to allow it.

The Kings started their power play with only 37 seconds left in the second period after a cross-checking penalty against Craig MacTavish. Steve Duchesne wasted no time scoring. Duchesne’s shot from the blue line passed Fuhr, who appeared to be screened.

Mike Krushelnyski’s third-period score, a power-play goal that was credited to him after he deflected a long shot by Steve Duchesne toward the net and possibly off the skate of one of his former Oiler teammates, gave the Kings a 3-2 lead with 17:05 left.

But Esa Tikkanen tied it again for the Oilers on a similar goal, getting a rebound past Healy after Jari Kurri’s shot had bounced off Muni’s glove.

Coach Robbie Ftorek said the Kings had called up Bob Janecyk from the club’s affiliate at New Haven to help bolster the depleted goaltending ranks.

Losing the first game cost the Kings the home-ice advantage they had worked all season to gain. But Gretzky has been through enough to know: “Nobody has ever won a Stanley Cup in one game.”

King Notes

Tonight’s game, the second of this Smythe Division semifinal series, will begin at 7:30 in the Forum. The game will be televised by Prime Ticket and broadcast by KLAC (570). . . . Goalie Kelly Hrudey and winger John Tonelli both were out with the flu for the playoff opener Wednesday night. . . . Glenn Healy had been scheduled to play the last game of the season for the Kings, at Vancouver Sunday, but Hrudey had to step in for him when Healy came down with the flu.