As Hard as They Tried, It’s an Old Story

Turn out the red lights, the party’s over.

Joe Murphy, the man Edmonton got for Jimmy Carson, who was the man Edmonton got for Wayne Gretzky, wrote the finish to the Kings’ season Tuesday night at the Forum. His overtime goal handed the Kings a 6-5 loss and a four-game Smythe Division playoff wipeout.

Ow.

Talk about adding Inglewood insult to injury.

Here are the Edmonton Oilers, without the greatest hockey player since Gordie Howe, and how good are they?

So good that, after Tuesday’s game, Gretzky said: “I’ve never seen them play better.”

Seems sort of unfair that a team could trade Wayne Gretzky and get better.

Gretzky didn’t play in this game; he watched it with a backache. The Kings, somewhat weirdly, played their two best games of the playoffs--Game 1 versus Calgary and Game 4 versus Edmonton--without Gretzky.

For a team that got broomed, the Kings went out like winners. Kelly Hrudey took shots to his sore ribs and turned them away. The Kings got their fans out of their seats and onto their feet with a rally from a 4-1 disadvantage that nearly sent them back to the Great White North.

Crazy people, these King fans. They actually had the gall to chant “Ranford! Ranford!” taunting the one man, Edmonton goaltender Bill Ranford, who had been the star of the series.

There is no truth the rumor that they didn’t chant “Hrudey! Hrudey!” because they couldn’t pronounce it.

The Kings outshot the Oilers in every game of this series. That’s how awesome Ranford was. They should have chanted his name after the game, as a nice gesture.

But maybe, like the rest of us, they were too disappointed at another season of Los Angeles hockey going down the old Forum drain.

This was the season the Kings could have lugged home the big silver jug.

There was nobody else left out there who scared them--not the Blues, Blackhawks, Bruins, Canadiens, Rangers or Capitals.

The Kings can consider themselves victims of alignment. Calgary and Edmonton probably have been the two best teams in hockey over the last two seasons. If Los Angeles played in the other conference, it might have made both the 1989 and 1990 Stanley Cup finals.

In the future, the NHL might realign the divisions, putting all the Canadian teams into one, and slipping the Kings into the Norris with St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit and the Minnesota (California?) North Stars.

But, for the moment anyway, the Kings would rather not think about the future.

They are a team centered by an 11-year veteran with a bad back (Wayne Gretzky).

They are a team that relied this season on a 38-year-old defenseman (Larry Robinson), a 34-year-old right wing (Dave Taylor) and a 33-year-old left wing (John Tonelli).

They no longer have Bernie Nicholls, Jimmy Carson, Mark Fitzpatrick, Martin Gelinas . . .

They are a team that hasn’t gone one step further with Gretzky than they went without Gretzky.

They are a team that took away Edmonton’s greatest player and gave Edmonton millions of dollars and all sorts of draft choices and still can’t get past the second round of the playoffs.

They are a team that did not play any better with Tom Webster as coach than with Robbie Ftorek as coach, and, in fact, during the regular season played worse.

They are a too-old team that lacks draft choices. They remain unsettled in goal, not knowing whether to stay with Kelly Hrudey, give Mario Gosselin or Ron Scott a chance, or hope that young Robb Stauber will be physically and emotionally ready by fall.

They have not gotten much out of Mikko Makela or Brian Benning, two guys who were supposed to be valuable pickups, and the jury is still out on whether Tomas Sandstrom and Tony Granato will make them rue the day they let Nicholls get away to New York.

The best thing the Kings have going for them is Bruce McNall’s pocketbook and his insatiable desire to bring Los Angeles a winner.

If he does not produce a Cup finalist with Gretzky working for him, how can he be expected to deliver one without him? McNall might have to find some sucker willing to part with a Mario Lemieux-type for a few billion bucks.

Gretzky made hockey a happening in this town. Most of us wouldn’t trade the last two seasons for anything.

But, as we said at the time, the Kings were gambling an awful lot on giving up so much for Gretzky. They have gambled and lost.

It isn’t over yet, for him or for them. You never know what tomorrow will bring, and, like Scarlett O’Hara, they won’t worry about tomorrow until tomorrow.

All we know is that, to win a Stanley Cup, the L.A. Kings need more than just a new division.

It isn’t enough to have the player. They need players--plural.