Kings Stun Edmonton, 4-1 : Gretzky and Company’s ‘Biggest Victory’ Ties Playoff Series

The trade of last August that took Wayne Gretzky away from the defending Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers and brought the Great One to the struggling Kings was bound to affect the balance of power in the National Hockey League sooner or later.

It’s happening sooner. It’s happening now.

Stunned Oiler fans saw some of that power slip away Thursday night at the Northlands Coliseum as the Kings came from behind to beat the Oilers, 4-1, snapping Edmonton’s playoff-game winning streak on their home ice at 14 and sending the series back to the Forum for the decisive seventh game.

Gretzky called it “the biggest victory” in the history of the Kings’ franchise. And owner Bruce McNall, the man who put up the millions of dollars to turn the Kings into a winner, was quick to agree.

“Absolutely, the biggest,” McNall said as he was knocked about in the crush outside the Kings’ dressing room by people wanting to shake his hand and pat him on the back and tell him that Gretzky was worth all the millions.

But McNall has been close enough to the coaches and players this season to add that the Oilers will “come out flying” Saturday night.

With the win, the Kings regained the home-ice advantage and took a giant step forward in their quest for the Stanley Cup. Their climactic matchup--the first time the Kings and Oilers have met in a seventh game--shapes up as a classic.

“I think the fans who have tickets will get their money’s worth,” McNall said.

And all tickets have already been sold. Incredibly, the crowd at the Northlands Coliseum Thursday night was a less-than-capacity 17,351.

Times are changing.

Game 6 started out looking like old times.

Seconds into the game, Gretzky blocked a shot by Oiler right wing Glenn Anderson that ricocheted right back to defenseman Randy Gregg, who fired a shot that King goalie Kelly Hrudey said bounced about 10 feet in front of him. He couldn’t stop the puck as it glanced off the ice. “I’m sure a lot of people thought that was the series right there,” Hrudey said.

The Oilers led, 1-0, with just 33 seconds gone. And there the score stayed through almost two periods, until Mike Allison’s goal tied the game at 16:22 of the second period.

Allison fought for that goal. He got the puck in the right corner and then scrapped and clawed and elbowed and kicked his way along the boards behind the Edmonton net, trying to keep the puck and lose Gregg at the same time. Gregg even pulled off one of Allison’s gloves as he sought to slow him down. But when Allison couldn’t lose Gregg, he dragged him along, getting both the puck and the defenseman around the left side of the net. As Allison was falling to the ice, with Gregg on his back, he reached out with his stick and swept the puck in a wide arc between the legs of Oiler goalie Grant Fuhr.

It was a goal for the highlight films. The kind of goal that turns a game around.

Said Dave Taylor: “It was a great, great effort by Allison. Gregg was trying to pin him on the boards and Mike just kept fighting him off and just outmuscled him. That really gave our team a big lift.”

The Kings had had a goal taken away just a few minutes earlier when referee Bill McCreary ruled that the puck had dropped in behind Fuhr as a result of a high stick by Taylor after Bernie Nicholls’ shot was deflected into the air. But television replays clearly showed that the puck went in off Oiler Esa Tikkanen. It should have counted.

In that second period, the Kings outshot the Oilers, 10-4.

Jim Weimer scored the tie-breaker at 4:15 of the third period, teamming up with Dave Taylor on a break toward the Oiler goal. Taylor took the puck up the right side, passed it to Weimer on the left and kept driving toward the right side of the net. Fuhr tried to keep an eye on both of them. But he wasn’t quite quick enough when Weimer decided to take the shot on the sharp angle from the bottom of the left circle instead of making the pass to Taylor.

Weimer, too, is a former Oiler. He had played with Edmonton’s Cape Breton team all season before being traded to the Kings in a deal for some other minor leaguers at the trading deadline, March 7.

When Weimer was recalled from New Haven just in time to score the game-winner against the Oilers here March 21, Oiler Coach Glen Sather expressed no regret at letting him go. In fact, Sather said at the time that Weimer was “old,” that he was “slow” and that he was, in fact, “a minor leaguer.”

But that slow, old minor leaguer came home and scored another game-winner when it counted most.

And then Chris Kontos, another player written off by the rest of the league but signed by the Kings on March 7, scored the insurance goal. Gretzky had pulled up at the top of the right circle, made one of his little swirls and then fired the puck across the slot to Kontos, who was waiting at the left post to shovel the puck over Fuhr’s right skate.

For Kontos, it was playoff goal No. 7, setting a club record for goals in a seven-game series.

But the Kings were not finished. Defenseman Dale DeGray tipped away a pass from Oiler wing Jari Kurri, putting it right on Nicholls’ stick. Nicholls made the quick pass to Luc Robitaille, who fired the 15-foot scoring shot off the pass.

The Kings won with a solid defensive effort and a diversified offense.

“We can’t rely on Wayne Gretzky to get all of our goals,” Taylor said. “We had some guys come through for us. Jim Weimer had a big goal. Chris Kontos, another guy who wasn’t even with us all season, came through with another big goal. The Oilers like to key on Gretzky and Nicholls and Robitaille, but we have others who can score.”

Allison isn’t one of the Kings’ big guns, either, but even couldn’t believe the goal he scored. Allison said he was merely trying to stay in control of the puck and get it out in front of the net, where other Kings were in scoring position.

“As I came around, and I think I was already going down, I heard somebody, maybe Stevie (Kasper) yelling that he was going to the net,” Allison said. “I reached out with one hand and pushed the puck around there.

“Did I think it had a chance of going in? Well, they say any time you shoot at the net it has a chance of going in. But I was thinking that at least there would be a rebound and a loose puck.”

When the red light came on, the Kings on the bench erupted.

But it was still a 1-1 game when Kurri took a shot at the Kings’ net that might have changed the course of the game. Hrudey made one of his best stops.

Said Gretzky: “From our point of view, that goal by Allison was the kind of goal that turns a game around. From (the Oilers’) point of view, the turning point might have been the stop on Kurri.”

Both of those plays turned the tide in favor of the Kings, who are on a two-game roll going into Saturday night’s game.

“It’s exciting,” Gretzky said. “They’re buzzing about hockey in Southern California.”

Asked if there might be a little magic taking place at the Forum Saturday, Gretzky, the ultimate sports fan, responded: “Magic (Johnson, of the Lakers) is playing the Clippers that night (at the Sports Arena). Hopefully, we’ll make some magic of our own.”