Promising Defense Is One Thing, Delivering It Puts Kings on Track

This season is going to be different, we swear.

This season, we’re going to play defense, honest.

This season, we have a shot at the Stanley Cup, really.

Once again, the Kings went to training camp making more promises than a politician in an election year.

And an entire league yawned.

Uh-huh. The Kings are going to play good defense and win the Stanley Cup. And Roseanne Barr is going to win a Grammy.

If anything, the chances of the Kings, who in their 23 seasons have never advanced past the second round of the playoffs, seemed bleaker than ever this season.

It seems hard to believe now, but just two months ago, this was a team still not sure Wayne Gretzky had completely shaken the back problems that plagued him at the end of last season.

The Kings’ defense seemed to have even bigger holes than usual. Tom Laidlaw, a key to that unit, was possibly out for the year with back problems. Bob Halkidis, who had come on strong late in the season, was still recovering from off-season back surgery. Larry Robinson, who had problems at 38, didn’t figure to be better at 39.

In goal, starter Kelly Hrudey was trying to come back from an injury-riddled season. And there was no dependable backup.

The National sports daily predicted that Coach Tom Webster would be the first coach fired, and rumors of General Manager Rogie Vachon’s demise had spread across the league over the summer.

Then a funny thing happened on the way back to the Forum.

The Kings started winning.

And an even funnier thing happened.

They did it with defense . The team that lived--but more often died--by the goal was suddenly playing tight-checking, five-man defense.

And as the goals-against dropped, the victories mounted.

Even so, the league waited for the other shoe to drop.

It can’t last, said the legions of doubters.

“I’m sure everybody thinks the wheels are going to fall off at any moment,” Hrudey said. “But we don’t care what the outsiders say. We are proving to ourselves what we can do.”

A quarter of the way through the season, the Kings have already done plenty. They are off to their best start at 15-4-1. They are in first place in the Smythe Division by three points over the runner-up Calgary Flames. They have won a record 10 in a row at home. They have put together an unprecedented 11-game unbeaten string on Forum ice.

“People are still waiting for us to cave in,” wing Dave Taylor said.

Not owner Bruce McNall. He’s reveling in finally being out from under the stifling shadow of that other team in the Forum.

“I hoped we’d do well,” McNall said. “But I can’t really say I envisioned this. I never dreamed we’d do this.

“We decided to keep the changes to a minimum this year because we thought we had the right chemistry.”

Starting at the top.

Much of the blame for the Kings’ previous failures came down, reasonably enough, on Vachon’s head, but McNall refused to replace him.

And Vachon, once an all-star goalie with the Kings, made perhaps the biggest save of this season on the eve of training camp when he traded Craig Duncanson, who apparently didn’t fit in the Kings’ future, to the Minnesota North Stars for Daniel Berthiaume, who didn’t seem to fit in anyone’s future.

The idea was to get a reliable backup for Hrudey. Instead, Hrudey got a rival.

Last season was a nightmare for Berthiaume. A feud with the Winnipeg Jets’ fans prompted his being traded to Minnesota. And a knee injury there rendered him ineffective.

But this season has been a dream. He has an 8-1 record and had given up only 2.47 goals a game before surrendering four to the New Jersey Devils Tuesday.

He also was in the net for the season’s most memorable game, a 2-0 shutout of the Blackhawks in Chicago. Berthiaume was a human wall that night, stopping 40 shots.

Hrudey hasn’t been too shabby either at 7-3-1 with a 3.07 goals-against average.

But the most impressive numbers have been posted in overall team defense.

The Kings have given up 58 goals, lowest total in the Smythe Division. Through 20 games last season, they had given up 87 and went on to allow 337, most in the division.

Through 20 games last year, the Kings’ record was 9-10-1.

See a connection?

“There’s no secret to why we’re playing well,” said Robinson, who became accustomed to playing great defense over 17 seasons with the Montreal Canadiens. “To a man, we are making a concentrated effort to play better defensively.”

Sounds simple. Everybody plays defense, everybody plays conservatively and the offense will take care of itself.

It’s the plan Webster put into effect early last season, but abandoned when things didn’t go right. But he reinstituted it in the playoffs, then vowed to stick with it and cut down on the goals against by 50 this season, even if it meant, as Webster put it, being successful, but boring.

The Kings certainly have become successful, but just as certainly not boring.

“Everybody’s made a commitment to the defense and realized it’s not going to take anything away from our offense,” Gretzky said.

“A lot of our better defense comes from our team speed. With people like (Tomas) Sandstrom and (Tony) Granato, we’re playing a lot of our game outside our blue line. You’re playing outside your zone, you’re going to be a better defensive team.”

Taylor, in his 14th season with the Kings, has seen more than his share of poor defense. Now, he sees a change.

“We’re not giving up the two-on-ones and three-on-twos like we used to,” he said. “But I would have to say the No. 1 factor is the goalies.”

Defenseman Steve Duchesne sees another factor.

“The big difference is getting the forwards to come back and help us out,” he said.

“People are saying it’s a fluke. But, you can tell the attitude is a lot different and it’s easier to play. We didn’t make any changes during the summer. Every year, we trade guys away. New guys change the chemistry. Now, we have the same guys and it seems like the chemistry is here.”

The major change is the addition of 20-year-old Rob Blake to a defensive corps that includes Robinson, Duchesne, Tim Watters, Brian Benning and Marty McSorley. Blake is being mentioned as a rookie-of-the-year candidate.

The Kings have also added former Pittsburgh Penguin defenseman Rod Buskas, obtained in the waiver draft.

Duchesne said, “Obviously, if we give up only one or two goals a game, with the power we have offensively, we’re going to win.”

Was it really less than a year ago that people were screaming that the Kings had given away their future by trading high-scoring center Bernie Nicholls?

One doesn’t hear much about that these days with the superb play of Granato and Sandstrom, who came from the New York Rangers in that deal.

Back in the days of Marcel Dionne, the Kings had the Triple Crown Line with him, Taylor and Charlie Simmer.

Now with Gretzky, Granato and Sandstrom, they have the Triple Threat Line.

Through 20 games, the three have combined for 38 goals, 43% of the team’s total, and 83 points.

Luc Robitaille with nine goals and more than 50 in two of the past three seasons, is another powerful offensive force on a line centered by Todd Elik, who got his chance when Nicholls left.

And with the numbers has come a growing confidence.

But are people ready to stop chuckling and start believing.

“I hope so,” Gretzky said. “Because we are for real.”