Wayne Who? Kings’ Rally a Great One : NHL playoffs: Robitaille, Hrudey have big games and Duchesne makes a big play as L.A. overcomes 3-1 deficit for 5-3 victory.

No Wayne? No problem.

With Wayne Gretzky sitting home in Los Angeles, out with a bad back, the Kings appeared to be dead before they started their best-of-seven playoff series against the Calgary Flames.

Instead, down 3-1 in the final period of Game 1, the Kings came to life Wednesday night, stunning the defending Stanley Cup champions in their Olympic Saddledome home with four goals to win, 5-3, before a crowd of 19,172.

This wasn’t the Miracle on Ice.

It wasn’t the Miracle on Manchester.

But it has to rank as one of the great comebacks in King history, considering the circumstances.

Heroes? Where to start?

Perhaps with Luc Robitaille, the team’s leading scorer in the regular season with 52 goals. He stepped forward in this Gretzky-less crisis, scoring the first goal of the game and then coming back with the go-ahead goal at 10:44 of the final period.

Or perhaps with goalie Kelly Hrudey. Sidelined by mononucleosis for much of the season, Hrudey had struggled just to get on the ice.

But given the start, it was impossible to get him off.

He played the entire game, facing 25 Flame shots and coming up with several key saves.

But the biggest save of all was left to defenseman Steve Duchesne.

The margin of victory in this game was as narrow as the length of Duchesne’s skate.

With 1:33 to play and the Kings clinging to a 4-3 lead, Al MacInnis fired from the right side. Joey Mullen, in front of the net, tipped the puck past Hrudey.

With the goal mouth open, it appeared the Flames had tied the game.

Not to Duchesne.

He skated in and kicked the puck out with his right skate.

For one precarious instant, the puck seemed to hang there at the goal line, as if deciding the fate of the Kings.

And then, the puck squirted wide of the goal mouth.

“It always feels great to win the big games,” Robitaille said. “It feels even greater because we didn’t have Wayne. That gives confidence to a lot of guys. We can’t wait for him to come back. We are missing the greatest player in the world. But if everybody gives a little bit more, we’ve got a shot.”

Few outside the Kings’ organization thought so before the opening faceoff.

After all, the Kings had stumbled through the regular season, finishing 34-39-7, fourth in the Smythe Division. The Flames won the division championship for the third consecutive season.

Add to that the fact Calgary had swept the Kings in the playoffs last season with Gretzky on the ice.

And Tuesday came the news that the superstar center, who suffered a hyper-extension of the back on March 22, would not be available for at least the first two games of this series, both on the Flames’ ice.

As if there wasn’t enough working against the Kings, they surrendered their first goal on a fluke play.

When MacInnis skated past Mike Krushelnyski in the first period on a power play, Krushelnyski spun around and threw his stick at the puck as he fell.

Automatic penalty shot.

MacInnis, given the opportunity to score on only the 20th penalty shot in NHL playoff history, made the most of it, skating down the right side before hitting a rising shot over Hrudey’s glove from a couple of feet out at the 16:52 mark.

Less than two minutes later, MacInnis struck again in a more orthodox manner. He smashed the puck past defenseman Marty McSorley and through Hrudey’s pads at 18:34 of the period to boost his team into the lead at 2-1.

That’s the way it stayed until early in the third period when Theoren Fleury extended the advantage by tipping in a shot from the left crease.

Only 2:26 had expired in the period.

Todd Elik began the comeback by scoring on the power play at 4:31.

That ended an incredible string of futility that had seen the Kings go zero for five on power plays up to that point Wednesday and 1 for 24 over four games.

The Kings liked that feeling of power so much, they did it again, with Tony Granato scoring on another power play at 10:26.

Before the Flames could digest that rapid turn of events, the Kings had the puck in the net again.

Just 18 seconds after Granato’s score, Robitaille put in a rebound off a McSorley shot.

“I’ve always been here to score,” Robitaille said, “but nobody’s going to replace Wayne. Especially me.”

Not in the past. Robitaille had scored only five goals in 21 previous playoff games, just two in 11 postseason games last year.

Robitaille had struggled to get his 50th goal, before finally scoring it Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks. “That seemed to lift the weight of the world off his shoulders,” said King Coach Tom Webster.

Steve Kasper applied the coup de grace Wednesday night after the Flames had pulled their goalie at 1:13.

McSorley kicked the puck out from behind his own net and Kasper skated free toward an open net at the other end.

Slam dunk.

“This is an example,” said the Flames’ Gary Suter, “of how a team can rally when someone they count on isn’t around.”

Calgary had been counting on their goalie Mike Vernon, but he surrendered all five goals on 31 shots.

“It was,” said Vernon, “an ugly, ugly third period.”

Not for the Kings.