Nicholls Has a Full Day as Kings Win

Bernie Nicholls got four goals Wednesday.

Sort of.

He picked up one in the morning when he got up, one when he went down in the evening and two more to help power the Kings past the Hartford Whalers, 5-2.

Confused? It gets worse.

Nicholls’ goals were spread over two countries, four days and 12 hours. He got two goals off his stick, one off his skates and one off a teammate, Wayne Gretzky, who quietly tied yet another league record Wednesday night.

Totally lost now?

So apparently were the officials in Quebec.

That’s where Nicholls’ weird tale began last Sunday. The Kings beat the Nordiques that day, with Nicholls slapping in a goal in the final second.

But after reviewing a tape of the game, Quebec officials decided that the puck was deflected off the stick of Gretzky, who was standing by the net. So they took the goal away from Nicholls.

But after a further review by NHL officials, Nicholls was given the goal back Wednesday morning.

“It’s always nice,” he said, “to wake up in the morning and have a goal.”

His second one, which came early Wednesday night at the Hartford Civic Center Coliseum, he could have easily done without.

With the Kings ahead on Gretzky’s first-period goal, his 14th, Whaler center Ron Francis brought the puck up the right side in the second period on the power play and fired it off goalie Kelly Hrudey. The puck rebounded and came to rest just outside the goal line.

Nicholls, trying to get it out, stepped on it.

He went down as if he’d landed on a banana peel. And the puck went in.

Francis, really just an innocent bystander on the play, got credit for his 14th goal at the 10:10 mark.

“I just stuck my skate out,” Nicholls said. “I don’t think it would have counted if it had been at the other end.”

But down at the other end, Nicholls got two that did count, his 23rd and 24th of the season, temporarily moving him into the league lead.

Nicholls’ first goal, a perfect slap shot from the left circle at 15:01 into the upper left-hand corner of the net on the goalie’s glove side, gave the Kings a 2-1 second-period lead.

But the Whalers, winners of four of their last five games and six in a row over the Kings in this building, came back to tie the game with 48 seconds to play in the period.

Right winger Kevin Dineen, threading his way through King defenders, scored a short-handed goal, delighting the crowd of 13,932.

Dineen raced down the ice on the right side, faked out Larry Robinson, cut left, losing Nicholls, then got past defenseman Steve Duchesne near the goal and flipped the puck in.

“Too bad,” Dineen said later in the locker room, “that it went for naught.” But the goal didn’t go unappreciated, even by the Kings.

“Wasn’t that a beauty?” said King Coach Tom Webster. “I stood up and cheered myself and I’m not supposed to do that.”

The Kings came back on the ice and took just four shots on goal in the final period, but connected on three of them to win comfortably, boosting their record to 16-12-3.

Duchesne wristed in the first from the left post for his ninth goal at 3:20 on a pass from Steve Kasper.

Nicholls got the second at 9:09 on a slap shot from the blue line.

And Luc Robitaille got the third at 15:32, to tie him with Nicholls at 24 goals, on an easy 10-footer at the left post after a perfect pass from Gretzky.

“You know if you get open, he’s going to get you the puck,” Robitaille said of Gretzky. “He’s the best in the world. He makes everybody’s job easier.”

Gretzky’s assist gave him at least one in 17 consecutive games. That ties an NHL record first set by Gretzky in the 1983-84 season and then equaled by his then-teammate at Edmonton, Paul Coffey, two seasons later.

“If I get another one next game, great,” Gretzky said. “If not, I’m tied with a good friend of mine. I’m not going to loose any sleep over it.”

Understandable. The greatest scorer in NHL history, he’s already done everything in hockey.

Well, not everything .

He’s never had a day quite like Bernie Nicholls had Wednesday.

King Notes

Two King right wingers left the game in the second period with injures. Mikko Makela, upended by Hartford’s Adam Burt, suffered a bruised shoulder. The Kings’ Dave Taylor was sidelined with a pulled groin muscle. . . . Kelly Hrudey, the Kings’ goalie, faced 27 shots, stopping 25. The Kings took only 25 shots against Whaler goalie Peter Sidorkiewicz . . . The NHL career of center Todd Elik lasted just one line shift. At least for now. Brought up from the Kings’ American Hockey League farm club in New Haven Monday to replace the ailing Bernie Nicholls, the 23-year-old Elik made a brief appearance against the Montreal Canadiens. But Elik was sent back Wednesday after it was determined Nicholls would not miss any ice time . . . Nicholls has a bruised ankle, bruised knee and pain in the lower back. But Wayne Gretzky, his closest friend on the team, taped an aspirin to Nicholls’ knee in practice and declared him fit.