Gretzky’s Six Points Lead Kings : Hockey: L.A. center takes scoring lead after three-goal, three-assist performance in 8-4 victory over Mario Lemieux and Penguins.

Mario Lemieux was due for a big game. So was Wayne Gretzky. The Pittsburgh Penguins were desperate for a victory. So were the Kings.

The showdown of the slumping superstars and their struggling supporting casts on a dark and stormy Halloween night promised to be interesting. And it was.

The way King Coach Tom Webster saw it, Gretzky clearly demonstrated his greatness by scoring a hat trick on Lemieux’s ice, adding three assists and leading the Kings to an 8-4 victory over the Penguins.

“There is no question that when you get the two best players in the game out there, there’s that challenge,” Webster said. “Wayne Gretzky showed, in my eyes, that he’s the best.”

At least he was the best Tuesday night at the Civic Arena as he scored six points to take over the National Hockey League scoring lead.

Lemieux, who has beaten Gretzky for the scoring title the last two seasons, had two assists--which considering his stats of late was not a bad game--but it wasn’t enough to save the Penguins from yet another humiliation.

Lemieux just doesn’t have the effect on the Penguins that Gretzky has on the Kings.

The Penguins have a record of 0-5-1 in their last six games. Pittsburgh’s record dropped to 3-7-2 despite the efforts of Kevin Stevens, who had the first hat trick of his NHL career.

The Kings, now halfway through a six-game trip, went back over the .500 mark with a record of 7-6-0. They’re two points out of first place in the Smythe Division.

But the sighs of relief in the Kings’ room were for the apparent end of Gretzky’s recent slump.

Since scoring his stunning record goal to send the game into overtime at Edmonton, and following up with the game-winning goal in the overtime, Gretzky has disappeared.

In the six games since he broke Gordie Howe’s all-time scoring record, Gretzky had scored a grand total of one goal. He had been held without a point three times.

Until the meeting with his young challenger.

Gretzky, surrounded by a crush of reporters and photographers after the game, admitted that he was relieved by what was being called his “breakout” performance.

“Oh, yeah,” Gretzky said. “It’s good to be back on track. I hadn’t had a good game in so long . . .

“In my life, in my career, after every record I have a one-game letdown and then I come back. This was such a big record--it was so nice to get--I’ve been down for a week or so. Coupled with the flu, I really haven’t played well. That’s not an excuse. I just played bad.

“I didn’t do it consciously, but, subconsciously, I think maybe I had some aftereffects of the record.”

That had to end sometime.

Webster gave Gretzky a little nudge towards a breakout game when he changed the lines, putting Gretzky on Bernie Nicholls’ line with Dave Taylor.

“It was just a feeling I had,” Webster said. “I thought they would have good chemistry together. I decided on the flight in here to try it.”

Gretzky scored his first two goals back-to-back in the early going, getting a short-handed score at 4:41 of the first period and an even-strength score at 5:41.

Both came off passes from Nicholls and both times Gretzky took the puck right to Penguin goalie Wendall Young, skating across the front of the goal and holding the puck until Young made a lunge and then flipping it into the back of the net.

The game took its strangest twist when King defenseman Larry Robinson’s clearing pass hit referee Don Koharsky bounced right back to the front of the Kings’ goal. Lemieux put the puck past the Kings’ Kelly Hrudey and the sellout crowd of 16,015 went crazy.

The crowd went crazier when, after long debate and consideration, Koharsky ruled that, because he was standing on the other side of the blue line, the puck was offsides when it hit him and the goal should not count.

Lemieux argued vehemently.

When play resumed, Lemieux took the puck around the back of the Kings net, sent it on a sharp angle to the front of the net and fed Dan Quinn for the Penguins’ first goal.

But John Tonelli scored off a pass from Luc Robitaille 33 seconds before the end of the first period to give the Kings some momentum going into the second period, and Gretzky scored his third goal on a power play just 1:40 in to the second period.

When Steve Kasper (whose line on this night included Tonelli and Robitaille) scored at 3:18 to give the Kings a 5-1 lead, the Penguins’ fate was sealed.

Before the period was out, Nicholls had scored two goals--off Gretzky passes--and the Kings were up, 7-2.

Asked how he liked the idea of playing on a regular line with Nicholls, Gretzky said: “It really opens up the ice for me. They’ve been putting two guys on me. With Bernie out there, they can’t do that.

“I think it works. We can stay together for awhile, especially once Krush (Steve Krushelnyski, who is recovering from a cracked wrist) comes back.

“There is no reason, at this time, that we should be split up.”

Nicholls agreed, saying: “You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket, but sometimes it works.”

King Notes

The Kings are 5-2 on the road. They’ll play Thursday night at Boston in what Wayne Gretzky was calling a “huge” game . . . Gretzky’s six points was not his biggest game as a King. He had seven in an 11-3 victory over Quebec at the Forum on Feb. 18, 1989.