Another Night in the NHL : Hockey: Kings say they were just sticking together in record-setting brawl/game against Oilers.

Most have compared it to boxing. Others to Wrestlemania.

But there can be no argument that Wednesday night’s game(?) at the Forum between the Kings and the Edmonton Oilers, won by Los Angeles, 4-2, was the roughest in National Hockey League history. At least in terms of penalties.

And that’s saying something for a league in which players often consider blood on their uniforms a red badge of courage.

There were 86 penalties, breaking the league record of 84 set by the Boston Bruins and the Minnesota North Stars in a 1981 game.

The Oilers were whistled for a record 45. Minnesota and Boston each had 42 in ’81.

Edmonton was penalized 199 minutes, the Kings 157--on 41 penalties. Seven players were ejected.

The two biggest casualties of the 3-hour 32-minute Mauling on Manchester were Kings. Right winger Tomas Sandstrom is out indefinitely with a broken bone near his right eye and a bad cut around that eye, the result of a blow by the Oilers’ Glenn Anderson. Defenseman Marty McSorley has been automatically suspended by the league for three games, according to a team spokesman, after receiving two game misconducts Wednesday, his fourth and fifth of the season.

The damage: 29 penalties for roughing, 15 for fighting, nine 10-minute misconducts, seven game misconducts, six calls for holding, four for high-sticking, three for cross-checking, three for hooking, two for elbowing, two for slashing, two for leaving the crease, two for unsportsmanlike conduct (above and beyond what has already been enumerated), one for tripping and one 10-minute match penalty.

Both clubs were sent to their locker rooms with 3:22 remaining in the second period to cool off. It didn’t work.

In fact, nothing seemed work to after McSorley and Edmonton’s Mark Messier threw the first blows only 1:35 into the game.

“That made it a spiritual game,” McSorley said. “Messier beats the drum for that hockey club. He’s such a spiritual guy. Such an emotional guy. A team will follow him. But I don’t know if (the first fight) was the cause of the reaction.

“You’re going to get games like that because you’ve got 20 guys who are very serious competitors. Messier is a hard-nosed hockey player like I am. Look at the tape. Mark probably dropped the gloves first.”

It was not that McSorley was downplaying his own role. Instead, he chose to emphasize the importance of the emotion generated on the ice Wednesday.

“You’ve got to have it. Period. You’ve just got to have it,” McSorley said. “To get to this level, you’ve got to be emotional. You’ve got to go through situations where you’re going to be faced with things like that. You want to see it. You’ve got to have the guys sticking together, and it happened. It really did. It there’s anything positive, it really makes the guys closer.

“It was a nice win because you had to work hard. It wasn’t a nice game, but it was a nice win. I’m not saying it was a good hockey game, but it made you feel a little closer to your teammates. Sometimes, you have to drop the gloves and take a stance.”

There was no argument from his boss, Bruce McNall.

“It was almost a war out there,” the Kings’ owner said. “I thought Marty set the tone right off the bat. I just hope that sets the tone for the rest of the season. I thought we needed to do that to beat a team like Edmonton. They’re tough. All season, we haven’t been playing them tough.”

McNall didn’t object to the toughness he saw on the ice.

“I don’t think,” he said, “any fan who was out here was disappointed. I thought it was a tremendous game in all ways. It was exciting.”

His general manager, Rogie Vachon, a former goalie with plenty of war and remembrance himself through 16 NHL seasons, said his players were tired of losing to the Oilers. The Kings were 1-4-2 against Edmonton before Wednesday.

“They had been beating us,” Vachon explained, “and everybody said, ‘hey, that’s enough of this.’ Whatever it’s going to take to win a game, we are going to do.

“When something like this does happen, players come back feeling good about themselves. If they have black eyes, they can say they took one for the boys.”

Cap Raeder, the Kings’ interim co-coach, saw it much the same way. “Everybody stuck up for everybody else,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about. Sometimes, something like this can bring a team closer together.”

NHL President John Ziegler did not return calls, leaving a deputy to react.

“We are very disturbed about it,” said Brian O’Neill, a league executive vice president, “and are investigating all aspects of it.

“You have to consider that in 1,000 games this year, this was the first aberration of this type that we’ve had. This is not something that takes place on a regular basis, but this will not do us any good.”

Harry Ornest, a former hockey official and former owner of the St. Louis Blues, was outraged after hearing of the Forum free-for-all.

“This is the only game I know,” said Ornest from Toronto, “where a player who comes out to play has to concern himself with whether he has to fight. Can you imagine if Joe Montana was faced with what Mark Messier faces regularly?

“Goon tactics must not be allowed. When they stop it, it will place a premium on talent and the brilliance of the great NHL athletes. It will mean a better game for the spectators and the players. Decisions will be based on talent rather than, in part, on the ability of goons and bullies to neutralize the talents and skills of the rest of the players . . . “Gretzky had to have a bodyguard when he was with Edmonton. What kind of game is this?”

“I’ve said all I can say about fighting,” Gretzky told reporters late Wednesday after not drawing a penalty against the Oilers. “If the NHL wants to do anything about it, fine. And if they don’t want to do anything about it, fine.”

Ornest said a lot has already been done.

“I think it’s a marvelous game,” he said. “The league has penalized high-sticking. They’ve put in the automatic ejection of the third man in on fights. The only cure-all would be that those in the first fight get automatically ejected. But the problem with that is that the instigator will get what he wanted, the ejection of a player like Messier--10% of the players are ruining it for 90%. And if someone like a Messier or Jari Kurri gets seriously hurt, where do you think the Oilers would look? Gretzky, that’s where. “The league has done its best to minimize or eliminate fighting. But sometimes, some nights, the refs can’t stop the players if they are determined to fight.”

Wednesday was such a night.