After Leading, Kings Can’t Put Flames Out, 4-4 : Hockey: Goals by MacInnis, Makarov bring Calgary back from a 4-2 deficit in the third period.

Can the Kings end years of frustration and failure by winning the first division title in their 24-year-old history?

Or will the Calgary Flames, three-time defending Smythe Division champions, rally for yet another title?

That was the question Tuesday night when the clubs played at the Forum.

But the answer will have to wait for another day.

Down by two goals in the third period, the Flames came back to finish in a 4-4 tie with the Kings before a sellout crowd of 16,005.

Al MacInnis’ 21st goal at 15:12 of the final period tied it up.

“I didn’t see it at all,” King goalie Daniel Berthiaume said of the final goal. “The only thing I saw was the puck behind me.

“It would have been better to get the two points, but we didn’t lose and now there is one less game to play.”

So the Kings retain their three-point advantage with a 31-19-7 record. Calgary is 30-21-6.

“They never give up,” Wayne Gretzky said of the Flames. “They are a solid hockey club. It will be a battle to the end. We’re disappointed, but it shows how far we’ve come as a hockey club. In the past, we would have been satisfied with a tie at home.”

The Kings continued a disturbing recent trend of fading in the latter stages of games.

That has been the case in the last three, which have resulted in a loss and two ties. The Kings have a total of only 10 shots in the third periods of their last three games.

Calgary outshot the Kings, 33-24, though the Kings had a 3-1 advantage in overtime.

The start of the game was delayed for ceremonies honoring Dave Taylor, who scored his 1,000th career point last week.

Taylor was given a sterling silver stick by his teammates to commemorate the occasion.

Trading it in for his trusty wooden stick, Taylor quickly added to his career total.

He had the puck in the slot and an inviting target in front of him in goalie Rick Wamsley, who had come out of the net and fallen to his knees. Taylor put the puck past Wamsley on the stick side for his 16th goal, 3:14 into the opening period, boosting the Kings into a 2-0 lead.

Rob Blake had scored their first goal at 2:49 on a power play, shooting from the left circle. The puck went beneath Wamsley’s pads for Blake’s seventh goal. Six of those have come on power plays.

Theoren Fleury found an unusual path to the net to cut the margin in half at 7:47 of the period. His shot from the slot went through the legs of both defenseman Rod Buskas and Berthiaume. It was Fleury’s 26th goal.

Before the period was over, Luc Robitaille had increased the Kings’ advantage to 3-1 at 11:26, scoring on a 40-foot shot from the slot. It sailed over Wamsley’s glove for Robitaille’s 32nd goal and his sixth in the last five games.

Both offenses were misfiring in the second period. There were only 15 shots on goal, the Kings getting nine.

The Flames capitalized on one of their six tries.

Joe Nieuwendyk, charging the net, picked off a rebound of a missed shot by Fleury and put the puck back in over Berthiaume’s stick. Nieuwendyk’s team-leading 30th goal at 18:22 brought Calgary to within a goal at 3-2.

But it didn’t stay that way for long. At the start of the final period, Gretzky pushed the Kings back into a two-goal lead by dumping a pass from the end boards in front of the net. Tomas Sandstrom put it past Wamsley’s pads for his 30th goal on a power play only 33 seconds into the period.

The Flames were quite out, though. At 3:12, Sergei Makarov scored from the left side to again make it a one-goal game. Sandstrom appeared to screen Berthiaume on the play, making it a little easier for the former Soviet star to score his 21st goal.

King Notes

In the pregame ceremonies, owner Bruce McNall had his own gift for Dave Taylor. For the 1,000 points, McNall presented Taylor with 1,000 Morgan silver dollars, in circulation from 1878 to 1921. The approximate value of the coins, given to Taylor in a silver bowl, is $20,000. . . . Tip-A-King is sold out. The annual event, an autograph and photo evening with the team, will be held at the Santa Monica Airport Hangar on March 3. All proceeds go to the Children’s Cancer Research Fund.