Oilers Give Kings Cold Shoulder, 4-3

The wind was howling, the snow was falling and the temperature was dropping in Edmonton Tuesday night. All the way down to somewhere around 50 below zero with the windchill factor.

A great night if you’re a sled dog.

Or a transplanted native of the Soviet Union, to whom a bitter winter night means sweet memories of a homeland far away.

But the Edmonton Oilers’ new right wing, Igor Viazmikin, didn’t need the weather to remind him of home Tuesday night.

Or to supply the sweet memories.

He did that himself by knocking in the game-winning goal, his first NHL goal, to beat the Kings, 4-3, at the Northlands Coliseum before a sellout crowd of 17,503.

For Viazmikin, a star in the Soviet National League for eight seasons, it was like the glory-filled days back home.

This game also brought back some memories for the Kings.

All bad.

The last time they were here, they lost the first two games of the division finals, were outscored, 13-1, and never recovered as the Oilers went on to sweep.

It didn’t take the Kings long to realize their fortunes in this building weren’t about to change.

Just long enough for the Oilers to take their first shot.

With the Kings out in front in the first period, 1-0, on Dave Taylor’s 18th goal, Jeff Beukeboom attempted a pass from center ice toward the left side.

He missed everything, but the side boards.

That was enough.

The puck hit a metal partition that holds up the glass, and caromed back toward the net. Goalie Daniel Berthiaume was off to the side, ready to clear the puck.

Instead, the caroming puck slid past him into the open net for Beukeboom’s second goal of the season.

Minnesota Fats couldn’t have played it any better.

“Another beauty,” said a disgusted Berthiaume, who was making his second consecutive start for the first time this season.

“Typical of the way things have been going for us,” said the equally disgusted King coach, Tom Webster.

The Oilers, however, didn’t have a monopoly on weird shots Tuesday night.

The Kings got one of their own on a power play. The scoring sequence began with Wayne Gretzky camped in his usual spot behind the net and Taylor in front on the left side.

Hit by Charlie Huddy, Taylor went down as Gretzky made his move on the left side and backhanded the puck at the net.

It bounced off Taylor’s left leg and past Edmonton goalie Kari Takko, giving Taylor his second goal of the night while he was on his hands and knees looking the other way.

John McIntyre’s second goal of the season accounted for the other King score.

Anatoli Semenov’s fifth goal and Craig Simpson’s 14th left the game deadlocked for Viazmikin.

He took a shot from 45 feet out that bounced off Berthiaume’s stick and bounded over his shoulder at the 13:44 mark of the final period.

“It was a routine save that rolled off my stick,” a dejected Berthiaume said. “The first two periods I was there. The third period, I wasn’t.”

Viazmikin, who is here on a 10-game tryout, said through an interpreter, “It certainly wasn’t my best shot.”

It was good enough to knock the Kings down to 17-10-5, and 1-5-4 over their last 10 games. Edmonton is 13-16-2.

King Notes

Out since March 17 with a disk problem, defenseman Tom Laidlaw will finally get into a game later this week. Laidlaw, who has been practicing with the Kings for several weeks, will test his back with the team’s Phoenix farm club, playing in two games with the Roadrunners over the weekend. If all goes well, Laidlaw hopes to work himself back into shape with a rehabilitation assignment to either Phoenix or the New Haven farm team. While recovering, Laidlaw has been doing the color commentary on King radio broadcasts.

The Kings will announce the new coach at New Haven today. The leading candidate is Garry Unger, who has been serving as interim coach since Marcel Comeau was fired last month. . . . Oiler center Mark Messier will wear a metal brace to protect his weakened knee. Messier says he has a torn ligament in the knee, but the official Oiler position is that it’s just a sprain that will not get worse if he continues to play.