NHL Playoffs Notebook : Tonelli Has Pneumonia, Not Flu, Stays Home

John Tonelli, who has more playoff experience than any other player on the Kings’ roster, is suffering from pneumonia and did not make the team’s charter flight to Edmonton Thursday night, sources close to the team said.

It was announced by the Kings that the flu kept Tonelli out of the first two games of the best-of-seven Smythe Division semifinal series against the Edmonton Oilers, as well as last Sunday night’s regular-season finale against the Vancouver Canucks.

Sources, though, said Tonelli’s ailment is more serious. Tonelli, 32, is recovering at Centinela Hospital Medical Center.

The 6-foot 1-inch, 200-pound left wing, who was the Kings’ No. 5 scorer in the regular season with 64 points in 77 games, is a veteran of 144 playoff games and helped the New York Islanders win four consecutive Stanley Cup championships between 1980 and 1983.

He was signed by the Kings as a free agent last June after playing two seasons with Calgary.

And he seemed especially excited about the playoffs.

“For the last few years, everyone else was treating me like I was washed up,” he said on the eve of the series. “This team has given me new life. I’ve never had so much fun playing hockey.”

Tonelli is not expected to play this weekend when the series moves to Edmonton for Games 3 and 4 Saturday and Sunday nights.

Glenn Healy, already dehydrated from a bout with the flu, spent Wednesday night at Centinela Hospital Medical Center after stopping 31 Edmonton shots in Game 1.

Healy, who had to beg out of a scheduled start last Sunday night at Vancouver because of a 102-degree fever, was injected with fluids between periods of his 4-3 loss to the Oilers.

Esa Tikkanen of the Oilers was roundly praised this season for his defensive work on Wayne Gretzky, his former teammate.

In eight games against the Oilers, Gretzky had one goal.

But Steve Kasper of the Kings, who gained a reputation with the Boston Bruins as Gretzky’s unfriendliest ghost, said it would be wrong to believe that stopping hockey’s best player does not require a collective effort.

“The key is discipline, and it’s a misconception to think that it’s one player stopping another,” Kasper said. “In my opinion, the great players in this league have such success because when they get the puck, people panic, and more than one guy goes to check them.

“And guys like Wayne or Mario (Lemiux) are so good that they’ll find the open man.

“So, the key to it is, if one guy’s assigned to him, let him go to him, and make sure everybody else picks up the other guys. That way, he has nobody to pass to. To say it’s a one-man job is totally false.”

Still, Kasper has admired the work of Tikkanen.

“The toughest thing for anyone--and he does it well--is to stay disciplined. You’re not going to help the team if you take a penalty.

“Some people say, ‘Why don’t you just hit him?’ Well, Wayne’s not an easy person to hit, and if you go out of your way to hit him, you’ll get a penalty. You’re not doing your job if you do that.”

Gretzky laughed the other night when asked if he ever went pointless in a playoff game, dismissing the question as ridiculous.

But it wasn’t that far-fetched.

The NHL’s all-time leading playoff scorer has been held without a point only 12 times in 122 career postseason games and has never gone two straight playoff games without a point.

His assist Thursday night on Chris Kontos’ first-period goal extended his playoff point-producing streak to 19 games, and his second-period goal was the 82nd of his career in the postseason, leaving him three shy of Mike Bossy’s all-time playoff record of 85.

The Oilers have won 12 straight playoff games at the Northlands Coliseum, where the series will move this weekend.

The Oilers were 11-0 at home in the playoffs last year, 16-2 overall, and won the Stanley Cup for the fourth time in five years.

Their last home playoff loss was to the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-3, on May 26, 1987, in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup championship series.