ANALYSIS : Injuries Can’t Hide the Hurt : Hockey: With so many players sidelined, Kings had excuses but no clear explanations for another disappointing season.

For one brief, shining moment, there was Camelot.

Although it was St. Patrick’s Day in Boston, the crowd filing out of Boston Garden was in anything but a festive mood.

They had just seen the Kings come from behind to beat the Bruins on their home ice for the first time in nine years.

The Kings that day seemed to have exorcised more than the Garden ghosts that had haunted them for so long.

Their own demons seemed on the run as well. The line of Wayne Gretzky, Tomas Sandstrom and Tony Granato, healthy as a unit for the first time, was silencing the critics of the trade that brought Granato and Sandstrom from the New York Rangers for Bernie Nicholls.

Goalie Kelly Hrudey was also in the recovery room, his long bout with an adult form of mononucleosis nearly over.

The victory over Boston was the Kings’ season-high fourth in a row, their third consecutive on the road. The team seemed poised to make a run in the playoffs, only two weeks away.

The lasting image of that day is Gretzky, stick held high in victory after scoring the winning goal with 1:40 to play.

Who could know that Gretzky had played his final game at anything resembling full strength?

Who could imagine that defenseman Tom Laidlaw had played his final game of the season?

The promise of that day in Boston would never be fulfilled.

Oh sure, the Kings would somehow manage to eliminate the Calgary Flames in six games despite a growing injury list.

But by the time the Edmonton Oilers had swept the Kings in the second round, clinching the best-of-seven series Tuesday night with a 6-5 overtime victory, the injury bug had taken over the Kings.

Out Tuesday night were Gretzky, Laidlaw, Tim Watters, Dave Taylor, Rob Blake and Scott Bjugstad.

Goalie Kelly Hrudey was playing with ribs bruised so badly it hurt him to breathe.

Sandstrom and Bob Kudelski were playing with broken fingers.

Defenseman Bob Halkidis was playing with a sore shoulder that will require off-season surgery and a knee injury that had caused doctors to advise him not to step on the ice.

Defenseman Larry Robinson was playing with a bad back.

Gretzky had aggravated a groin strain in the victory over Boston and sat out the next two games. Then, in the first period against the New York Islanders on March 22, he suffered a back injury that never fully healed throughout the postseason.

That’s not to say the Kings would have done much better against the Oilers at full strength. Edmonton goalie Bill Ranford was immovable at times in the series.

In the first two games, before the injuries had taken their full toll, the Oilers won by a cumulative score of 13-1.

So where does owner Bruce McNall go from here?

He bought the Kings two years ago.

He fired a coach.

He bought Gretzky for $15 million and a handful of draft choices in a multiplayer trade with Edmonton.

He spent $30 million to keep Gretzky for the rest of his career.

He spent $1.65 million to get Robinson.

He has spent more than $7.5 million in payroll, highest in the league.

He spent $5 million on a plane for the club.

He coaxed Barry Beck out of retirement.

And when all is said and done, his Kings are right where he found them, mired in the second round, that elusive Stanley Cup still a distant mirage.

So what do you do, Bruce, chalk it up to bad breaks and show your team some sympathy, or follow tradition with this club and show your management people the door?

“When the roof falls in,” McNall said, “people tend to look at three areas: goalie, coach and general manager. And not necessarily in that order.

“My answer to whether I am happy with these people is yes in all three cases. I am not in the mood to make further changes. I’d like to see some stability.

“When you always make changes, there is no chance for a team to jell.”

McNall says he feels a lot more secure with what he has than he did a year ago.

“When we got Wayne, we had to get the right personnel to play with him,” McNall said. “We knew we had to get some speed, and I think we took care of that with the Nicholls trade.

“Once our team changed, I thought we needed a coaching change. When we had a young team, Robbie Ftorek provided direction and education. But once we got veteran players, we needed a game plan and motivation rather than instruction.

“Tom Webster is a coach players want to play for, and that is an important thing.”

Indeed, some of the problems of a year ago have been alleviated. Sandstrom and Granato give the Kings a stronger, faster front line, and the replacement of Nicholls with Todd Elik on the second line has added speed there.

With Hrudey in goal and Robb Stauber in the wings several seasons down the line, the Kings are solid there as well.

But a question mark still hangs over the defense.

Robinson, 38, may have gotten his game back in the playoffs, but he struggled all season and doesn’t figure to be any better at 39. Beck is long gone, his comeback a fizzle.

Blake showed promise, but also the jitters of inexperience. Halkidis looked like a player of the future, but even when he and Laidlaw and Watters were injury-free, the Kings gave up 337 goals in the regular season, worst in the Smythe Division and fourth worst in the NHL.

Laidlaw will be 32 next season, Watters 31, John Tonelli 33 and Dave Taylor 34.

McNall compared the Kings’ plight against Edmonton to the Lakers’ performance in the NBA Finals last year when injuries to Magic Johnson and Byron Scott resulted in a sweep by the Detroit Pistons.

One big difference. The Lakers had already proved themselves through domination of the league over the decade. So what happened last year could be called an aberration.

The injured Kings of 1990 only did what injury-free King teams have done since the franchise was formed: promise much, deliver little, fall by the second round.

The effort against Calgary can’t obscure the fact this team, considered Stanley Cup contenders in the preseason, finished fourth in its division at 34-39-7.

Nothing seems to change. Different owners. Different coaches. Even the arrival of Gretzky.

But still, this club seems no closer to Camelot.