Lemieux Gets His Point, Penguins Get a Victory

The pain begins the moment Mario Lemieux wakes up.

Just walking into the arena can be a chore.

Putting on his skates is almost unbearable.

But when he gets out on the ice, when he hears the cheers of the crowd as he skates in pursuit of a legend, the herniated disk in his back is temporarily forgotten.

Once again Saturday night, in a 7-6 victory over the Kings, the Pittsburgh Penguin center went through the whole ordeal. Once again, he struggled out onto the ice, and, once again, he got a point, extending his point-scoring streak to 45 consecutive games, only six shy of Wayne Gretzky’s NHL record.

That would have been enough for the sellout crowd of 16,236.

That the Penguins came back from a two-goal deficit in the final period to win was gravy.

Lemieux had a second-period assist on a goal by Paul Coffey.

“It hurts all the time,” admitted Lemieux of the problem that will require surgery at season’s end. “It (the streak) is getting tougher and tougher. Every game is tough. The closer I get to breaking it, the more nervous I get.”

Lemieux needn’t have been nervous Saturday. Everybody scores points on the Kings.

Or so it seems lately.

Other than the back-to-back victories over the Calgary Flames last week, which seem an aberration, this hasn’t been much of a decade for the Kings.

They won New Year’s Day. Since then, they are 4-10-2, and have dropped to 24-26-6.

The Penguins also have struggled. They are only 25-27-4, and their troubles have been on defense.

Like the Kings.

This was a good case in point.

The Kings outshot the Penguins, 14-4, in the first period, led 2-1, 4-2 and 5-3, then folded in third period when they surrendered four goals and the game.

“It’s really frustrating,” said the Kings’ Luc Robitaille. “This was a stupid game to lose. We never should have lost.

“In the first period, we were forechecking all over the place. Then we just stopped skating. We tried to sit back. We know that with the club we have, we can’t do that.

“They are not a good team. We’ve got to win this game. There are no excuses.”

Robitaille scored his team-leading 38th and 39th goals, but the offensive star was Pittsburgh right winger Rob Brown, who had a hat trick and four points, scoring his 24th, 25th and 26th goals.

Some of the defensive faults of both clubs might be laid at the net. Both clubs have missing goalies.

Kelly Hrudey of the Kings has been in and out of the lineup for several weeks because of a viral infection. He played the first period Saturday, gave up two goals and was removed. Backup Mario Gosselin played the rest of the way, facing 28 shots and giving up five goals.

For Pittsburgh, goalie Tom Barrasso has taken a leave of absence to be with his three-year-old daughter in Los Angeles where she is undergoing cancer treatment.

Wendell Young played in his place, facing 29 shots and saving 23.

Pittsburgh center John Cullen started the offensive show 24 seconds after the opening faceoff with his 22nd goal.

After Robitaille tied it, the Kings moved ahead on their first penalty shot of the season. Jim Kyte was called for pulling Tomas Sandstrom down on a breakaway. Sandstrom responded by calmly popping the puck between Young’s pads for his 23rd goal at 11:07.

Brown’s first goal of the night, from the right circle at 14:23, tied the game, 2-2, but Robitaille’s second and John Tonelli’s 23rd of the season left the Kings on top, 4-2, after a period.

By now, the crowd was growing restless. It was well into the second period and still Lemieux was pointless.

Finally, he took a drop pass from Bob Errey on the left side, left a drop pass of his own a little further up the ice and then watched as Coffey, a teammate of Gretzky’s at Edmonton when he set the record in the 1983-84 season, scored on a wrist shot from the left side about 20 feet out.

It was Coffey’s 66th career goal in the 2 1/2 years since joining Pittsburgh, tying him with Ron Stackhouse and Randy Carlyle for most by a Penguin defenseman.

But all most people will remember is who got the second assist.

“We like to get him his point as early as he can in the game,” Coffey said, “so we can get back to playing hockey.”

That they did.

Steve Duchesne opened the third-period scoring with his 15th goal.

Then it was all Penguins:

--Brown, at 11:14 from the right side, scored with just two seconds left on a power play after an interference call against Steve Kasper.

--Troy Loney, 39 seconds later, scored his sixth goal. He took a shot from in close on the right side that was blocked by Gosselin, then hit the puck while it was still in the air and bounced it in off Gosselin’s right pad.

--Phil Bourque scored his 15th goal at 17:29 when he took a centering pass and was alone in front the goal.

--And, finally, Brown’s empty-net goal with 25 seconds remaining completed his hat trick.

The Kings’ Marty McSorley closed out the scoring with his 11th goal with four seconds to play.

At last, Lemieux was able to drag his aching body into the whirlpool.

The pain was back.

The Kings know just how he felt.