Hrudey Helps Save the Day

Coming into this game, Kelly Hrudey was hready for anything.

He was pumped. He was psyched. Pick any typical jock expression with regard to being excited about a big game, and it applied Tuesday night to the King goaltender.

On his way to 32 saves, some of them spectacular, in a 4-2 Game 5 victory over the Edmonton Oilers that gave the Kings a stay of execution in the National Hockey League playoffs, Hrudey was never more sharp than he was toward the end of the second period.

They came at him three on one. They came from his left and from his right. One minute Normand Lacombe came at him, the next minute Craig MacTavish came at him. Whoever and wherever they were, Hrudey handled the situation. He turned them away like a bouncer.

And, as the second period ended--remember, the game still had 20 minutes to go--Hrudey took the puck and flung it into the Forum crowd.

“That’s one of the few times you will ever see me hot dog it,” Hrudey said later.

He couldn’t resist. Whatever the Oilers were going to throw at him, Hrudey was prepared to handle it. His hockey team’s survival depended on him, and, at long last, Hrudey felt well enough to do something about it.

The flu could not have come at a worse time. Just when the Kings had the Oilers right where they wanted them--an event that occurs about once a decade, if that often--illness overwhelmed several of the key King players, including Hrudey, their goaltender, who had to sit out Game 1.

Tuesday was the first time in several days Hrudey had felt even “halfway decent,” he said. He had no appetite. He felt weak. The last thing he felt like doing was abandoning the Kings in their hour of need, but better to play somebody else than to have your goalie do you-know-what into his mask.

When the Kings picked him up, Hrudey was going to be the last piece of the puzzle, the goalie who could take them to Stanley Cup paradise. He was impressive in his days with the New York Islanders, and everybody around the league seemed to think it was Bruce McNall’s best deal since the Big One with the Oilers.

But when Edmonton moved out to a 3-1 lead over the Kings in the playoffs, it was just like old times. Bad old times.

Hrudey hardly felt responsible, but he did feel he wanted to do something about it. Just as he feels he wants to do something about postponing the end of the season Thursday night, when the Kings play Game 6 at Edmonton’s chamber of hockey horrors.

Soon as someone mentioned the obvious, that Edmonton never seems to lose a playoff game on its home ice, the first words out of Hrudey’s mouth were:

“That’s good.”

That’s good?

“That’s good,” he said. “Odds are, they’re due to lose one.”

That’s what you’re hoping, anyway, someone said.

“I’m not hoping,” Hrudey said.

You’re not?

“I’m going to go up there and try to make it happen,” he said. “I’m not going to wait for Lady Luck to make it happen.”

Hrudey likes to be logical about things, doesn’t like people generalizing.

For example, he is getting tired of hearing about what a lousy break for the Kings it was drawing Edmonton as a first-round opponent.

“I keep hearing people say it’s rare to have two teams of this caliber meeting in the first round of the playoffs. Well, I would like to contradict that,” Hrudey said. “I’ve been in the Patrick Division. Sometimes we’ve had the best and third-best teams in hockey meeting in the opening round. So, this is nothing new, speaking for myself.”

Trust us, Kel, it’s new for a lot of the Kings. And it’s definitely new for Los Angeles.

The Kings came out checking and hitting and belting Tuesday night, obviously eager not to give up without a fight. A couple minutes into the game, when Tim Watters and Tom Laidlaw laid out friend-turned-foe Jimmy Carson, you knew the Kings meant business.

They got another good game out of the Great One, too. No, not Wayne Gretzky. The Great Kontos. Whatever got into this Kontos kid, the Kings hope it keeps getting into him. The kid has got six goals in five games, and he is skating about two inches off the ice.

Oh, by the way, the Still Pretty Darn Good Gretzky had his best night of the playoffs, scoring a goal and assisting on two others. It’s crunch-time in the National Hockey League, boys and girls, so look for Wayne to be earning his pay.

Let’s see, what else inspired the Kings in this game? Luc Robitaille’s first score of the playoffs? Sure, why not?

“I finally got that truck off my back,” said Robitaille, who always has an interesting way of putting things.

Robitaille was asked if that good-luck letter from the former President of the United States and Mr. Hockey himself, Ronald Reagan, had anything to do with the Kings’ success.

“It was neat,” Robitaille said. “Of course, he didn’t score any goals.”

Robitaille also said he had never heard of anybody called the Gipper.

“Gipper? I like it. Hey, I’ve learned another new word,” he said.

All this aside, the man of the hour clearly was Hrudey, who coined a new jock expression himself in the locker room, saying the Kings “have to take this thing one period at a time.”

One of his teammates came by his locker at that point, singing: “Hey, hey, Kelly Hrudey, you really are a cutie.”

The Kings are alive; longer live the Kings.