For One Night, at Least, Nobody in NHL Is Better

If the last period of the hockey season is anything like the first period, the Kings can go get fitted for rings.

There is nothing Bruce McNall would rather be doing next May than be having breakfast at Tiffany’s when the Stanley Cup playoffs come to an end. But like the rest of us, about all Bruce the Boss can do for now is sit back and watch and wonder whether another long season will end with another Los Angeles loss.

In the Inglewood season opener Thursday night between the has-been New York Islanders and the wanna-be Kings, there was more than just a chill in the air. There was hope. Playing shot-a-minute hockey in those 20 minutes, the Kings outhustled and outmuscled the Islanders, setting the tone for what turned out to be a 4-1 victory.

Wayne Gretzky lit the first red light--which, if I am not mistaken, has been written into the National Hockey League charter as mandatory. King Wayne, who leads the Kings in goals, assists and autobiographies, got another goal and an assist later in the game, christening the new season with his aluminum-shaft stick, Excalibur.

It was the start of his 13th NHL season and the end of an interesting off-season for Gretz. A horse he owns ran first in a million-dollar race, and a book he co-wrote with Rick Reilly had some very interesting things to say about the Edmonton Oilers, who have not as yet dismantled the statue of Gretzky that sits outside their arena.

What interests Wayne most is where the Oilers and Kings will be at season’s end. As part of an apparent plan to spot Los Angeles a handicap, similar to horse racing, Edmonton is now doing without Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey, Jimmy Carson and Grant Fuhr, and is considering a request that Mark Messier play with one glove tied behind his back.

The poor little rinky-dink Kings are bound to make it to the Cup finals one of these seasons, so how about this season? They close the regular season March 31 at Calgary, and then the fun starts. Or at least that’s the general idea.

While there were hardly wholesale changes on the King roster, the Forum crowd Thursday was introduced to Rob Blake, the hotshot 20-year-old defenseman, who found himself on a line with Gretzky, Tomas Sandstrom, Luc Robitaille and Steve Duchesne at the time of the season’s first goal.

Blake is so young that I’ll bet Larry Robinson could call him “Toe” without the kid understanding why. Robinson, who has a son in college, found himself in the same pairing Thursday with Blake, which probably made Larry feel a little like Ken Griffey Sr.

Although the Kings continue to have as many old faces as new, they did use rookie winger Francois Breault. Now there’s a name for a hockey player. Hockey players should all be named Francois and Marcel and Jean-Hyphen-something, if you ask me.

The Kings wasted no time putting Blake to work, using him on a power play 41 seconds into the game, when Rich Pilon of the Islanders decided the season was never too young to start tripping people.

Four minutes from the end of the first period, the Islanders found themselves being outshot, 18-3. That’s how frisky the Kings were on opening night. They made Tom Webster a happy coach on his birthday, playing with zest and enthusiasm.

But do they have what it takes to go to the Land Beyond Alberta, or is this going to be another of those years when Edmonton or Calgary get to have all the fun? The Kings have the greatest player in the game, a generally reliable goalie, a team plane worthy of Wonder Woman and an entire season, presumably, with Sandstrom and Tony Granato at their disposal, which might make King fans forget Bernie Nicholls by Christmas.

What they need most to do is be as aggressive on the last day of March as they were in the first week of October. Nobody ever accused the Kings of being violent cross-checkers or vicious defensemen. They can’t just outshoot everybody and leave it at that.

We shall see. It is only October, and the outlook for winter is bright. Now is the season of our content.