Oilers Are Not Unbeatable in Edmonton, but Kings Will Have to Prove It

It is not the habit of the Edmonton Oilers to lose playoff games at the Northlands Coliseum. They didn’t do so last year and they haven’t done so this year. In fact, they’ve won 14 straight on their home ice.

Which is not to say the Oilers can’t be beaten in Edmonton.

“Oh, they’ve lost there before,” Coach Robbie Ftorek of the Kings said.

Tonight, Ftorek is going to have to find a way for them to be beaten again if the Kings are not to be ousted from the National Hockey League playoffs.

The Kings are going into Game 6 of the Smythe Division semifinal playoff series trailing, three games to two. One more win by the Oilers and the Kings can go on vacation.

The Kings keep harking back to the two games they won up here at the end of the regular season. Granted, those were not playoff games, but by winning them the Kings did remove the invincible tag from the defending Stanley Cup champions.

Still, no one understands the confidence the Oilers have in their playoff streaks and the advantage they have on their home ice better than the players who once played there.

“They have the best ice in the league,” Wayne Gretzky said. “They thrive on that ice.”

Marty McSorley pointed out that the fans in the Forum are louder than the fans in Northlands Coliseum, but said there is an intensity and a seriousness about hockey at the Northlands that cannot be denied.

Yet, when the subject of fast, open ice was mentioned, McSorley thought for a minute, admitted that the Oilers are fast, then added: “We have a lot of speed on our team. We’ve scored more goals in the league this year than anyone. If they want to turn it up a notch, fine. We’ll have a shootout. We have some guys who would be very happy to oblige.”

In playing the Oilers, it is Edmonton’s patience and discipline that the Kings have to keep trying to match. These have not been high-scoring games. Said Gretzky: “We felt like we have played pretty well throughout the series. There hasn’t been a dominant team.”

The last time the Kings came to town for a playoff game against the Oilers, their chartered plane left Los Angeles two hours after their game at the Forum and they did not get to their hotel here until 6 a.m.

They lost on each of the next two nights.

This time, after beating the Oilers in Game 5 at the Forum Tuesday night, the Kings were allowed to go home and get a good night’s sleep, skate at their own practice rink the next morning, then catch a 1 p.m. charter that put them here early Wednesday evening.

Gretzky called that plan “a lot more reasonable.”

Ftorek said that travel plans were changed because some of the players didn’t like the all-night travel.

Once again the columnists are wondering, in print, why Ftorek is the coach of the Kings and how long he will keep the position.

His contract runs only through the end of this season, so the questions to owner Bruce McNall are whether he wants Ftorek back, whether Ftorek’s future depends on the outcome of the playoffs, and when these things will be decided.

“We haven’t even talked about it,” McNall said. “Robbie is busy with the playoffs right now, and we won’t sit down and talk about it for a while. My plan is to take a couple of weeks after the season and evaluate all personnel.

“Nothing has been decided at this point. I don’t even know what Robbie wants to do.”

John Tonelli, the oldest of the Kings and the man with the most playoff experience gave the Kings a lift by starting at left wing on the first line the Kings sent out Tuesday night.

But he logged very little ice time after that. He was not 100% after losing a reported 14 pounds last week while in hospital trying to recover from complications of the flu, including respiratory problems and high fever.

Asked if he had put Tonelli out there for the first faceoff to give the team a psychological boost, Ftorek said: “I would imagine, possibly.” That meant, he explained, that his fellow coaches, Cap Raeder and Bryan Maxwell, seemed to think it would give the team a boost.

“He’s sound defensively and he knew he wasn’t going to see a lot of ice time,” Ftorek said. “But he’s hungry.”

King Notes

Game 6 of the Kings’ playoff series against the Oilers will be televised by Prime Ticket and broadcast by KLAC (570) at 6:35 p.m. tonight. . . . Chris Kontos, signed by the Kings as a free agent on March 7, leads the NHL in playoff goals with six. That ties the Kings’ club record for goals in a playoff series set by Marcel Dionne in 1976 against Boston. . . . With his goal Tuesday night, Wayne Gretzky passed Maurice Richard to become the NHL’s second-leading playoff goal scorer with 83. Mike Bossy is first with 85. . . . Oiler Coach Glen Sather was not predicting whether the series would go six games or seven after the Kings stayed alive in Game 5, but he did take a little jab at one of his former players, saying, “Marty McSorley said they’d win it in five. We’ve already disrupted his plans.”

If the series goes to a seventh game, the teams will meet at the Forum Saturday at 7:15 p.m., with the scheduled Lazers’ game being switched to Sunday at 11:30 a.m.