Kings Not Putting Up a Fight : NHL playoffs: They’ve backed off from Flames and stayed out of penalty box.

The Kings have come almost full circle since a contentious, embarrassing playoff series with the Calgary Flames one year ago.

Now, it’s the Kings who are humiliating the defending Stanley Cup champion Flames.

The Kings are playing the tough defense, doing some capable forechecking and skating away from foolish penalties.

All of which is just as surprising as the Kings’ 12-4, record-smashing rout Tuesday night that pushed the Flames to within one game of elimination from the Smythe Division semifinals.

Dave Taylor, Tomas Sandstrom and Tony Granato each scored three goals, the first time three hat tricks have been scored in a playoff game. And the line of Wayne Gretzky, Granato and Sandstrom scored 15 points, with Gretzky getting a goal and four assists in his second game since returning from a back injury.

The Kings have a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 series, which resumes Thursday night at the Olympic Saddledome in Calgary.

The Flames came out playing a physical game on Tuesday. But the Kings--some of whom have never met a fight they didn’t like--remained disciplined.

“We’re not going to be intimidated, that’s not going to happen to us,” Gretzky said. “We’re a pretty tough hockey club. What makes you a tough hockey team is if you can take a hit to make a play and go to the net and take a hit. You know, we’re doing that right now.”

Even Jay Miller, second on the Kings in regular-season penalty minutes, behaved. Not only did he have a multi-point game with his first career playoff goal and an assist, but he skated away from potential trouble after drawing a holding penalty from Al MacInnis.

“We’ve got to stay out of the (penalty) box,” said Miller, who did just that. “We’re not going to let them go on the power play. There was not a penalty in the second period.

“We are not going to be intimidated by cheap shots. Last year (Marty) McSorley and I went crazy against Calgary. We can’t do that this time. We won the home-ice advantage and cut it, and we’ve got to make sure we keep it.”

The Kings drew only three penalties for six minutes; the Flames had nine for 29 minutes.

Last year, the Kings eliminated the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers in the semifinals. But in the division finals, they became flustered early and were swept by the Flames.

The Kings converted only two of seven power-play opportunities Tuesday night, on Taylor’s first goal and Granato’s last, but it hardly mattered.

“They helped us make ourselves look bad, and when they didn’t help us it was all our fault,” Flame defenseman Ric Nattress said. “They are playing a very disciplined game, which we haven’t seen but I fully knew they could play a game like that.”

Flame Coach Terry Crisp was baffled. “For whatever reason, we had jump, we had intensity, the guys were alive on the bench.

“They were hitting; we never hit so many bodies and yet it was like all the energy was going in all directions instead of flowing down a straight pipe.”

Mike Vernon gave up the first three goals on three consecutive shots in the first period. Taylor victimized backup goalie Rick Wamsley, making it four goals on just five shots.

The 12 goals were the most for the Kings in a playoff game and the most against the Flames. They were also one shy of the NHL playoff record set by the Oilers in a 13-3 win over Los Angeles in 1987. The nine-goal second period was an NHL playoff record, and the Kings set a club record with five of those goals.

Gretzky, Sandstrom and Granato each had five points, setting the club record for most points by a player in one game. Taylor passed Marcel Dionne for the team’s all-time playoff scoring lead with 46 points. Joel Otto and Paul Ranheim scored the two fastest goals in Flames playoff history, 22 seconds apart in the second period.

Offense is nothing new to the Kings, but defense is.

“The last month of the season we started to play better defense,” Taylor said. “What happened was we had some key injuries, some guys in and out of the lineup. Wayne went out of the lineup, Larry Robinson went out of the lineup, John Tonelli went out of the lineup. Those are some of our key players and now they’re back. We’re getting a lot of leadership from the guys who have been to the finals or have won the Cup before.”

Just those three--Gretzky, Robinson and Tonelli--have played on 14 Stanley Cup winners and have been in 18 finals.

Only six teams have come back from 3-1 playoff deficits, including the Kings last year against Edmonton.