Kings Rally for Tie, but Lose Ground

So what happened?

Five days ago, the Kings flew out of Calgary with their biggest victory of the season and the Smythe Division lead.

Wednesday night, the Kings lost the division lead when they had to rally to tie the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-4, before a sellout Forum crowd of 16,005.

It was the Kings’ second consecutive dismal performance against a club on the bottom of its respective division. Sunday, they lost to the Vancouver Canucks, 5-4, in overtime.

“We had no intensity in the first two periods,” Luc Robitaille said. “I don’t know. There’s no excuse. We can’t be ready just for Calgary.”

No intensity?

With five games to play and within reach of the first division title in their 24-year history, intensity would figure to be the least of the Kings’ problems.

But that certainly seemed to be the case Wednesday as the Kings gave up all four goals on turnovers.

They have surrendered their last eight goals on turnovers, hardly the mark of a club marching confidently to a division title.

A victory by the Flames over the Canucks Wednesday, coupled with the tie by the Kings (42-23-10) knocked the Kings out of first by a point, the first time they have not held at least a share of the division lead since Jan. 9.

The Kings were forced to play Wednesday night without two defensemen. Steve Duchesne and Marty McSorley are both serving suspensions. And goalie Kelly Hrudey didn’t start because of food poisoning.

The Kings fell behind, 4-1, after two periods, then put on a furious rally, capped by Wayne Gretzky’s fourth assist of the night and Tomas Sandstrom’s second goal at 18:19 to secure the tie against Toronto (21-44-10).

The Kings took the early lead before they started turning the puck over to Toronto.

When Daniel Berthiaume blocked Michel Petit’s first-period shot, the puck took a fortunate bounce for the Kings, all the way out to Gretzky along the right boards.

Gretzky spotted Sandstrom streaking down the middle and whipped the puck to him.

If he had been allowed to drop it, Sandstrom couldn’t have put the puck in a better spot--middle of the ice, just short of the blue line and right between two defenders.

Sandstrom made the most of it, skating down the slot and off to his left before nailing his 40th goal between the legs of Toronto goalie Peter Ing at 12:52.

The assist, Gretzky’s league-leading 114th, enabled him to extend his NHL-record assist streak to 21 consecutive games.

So much for the King highlights.

The Maple Leafs got even at 13:56 on a power play after Bob Halkidis was called for holding. Rob Blake lost the puck out of a faceoff. Vincent Damphousse gained control and shoveled the puck over to Brian Bradley on the right side. Bradley passed it through the crease to Tom Fergus on the left.

Fergus, firing from the left circle, put the puck between Berthiaume’s legs for his fifth goal.

When Halkidis whipped the puck around the end boards and onto the stick of Dave Reid, Toronto again made the most of the turnover.

Dave Hannan on the right side passed to Gary Leeman on the left. Before Berthiaume could recover, Leeman had smacked his 15th goal through the open left side.

The fans had barely been seated at the start of the second period before the Kings coughed up the puck again. This time, it was Brian Benning on a King power play. He was checked off the puck behind the net by Reid, who passed to Hannan.

Petit got the puck on the right side and scored his 13th goal and first short-handed, the puck caroming off Berthiaume’s glove into the net only 40 seconds into the period.

For the Kings, it was the 17th short-handed goal surrendered this season, second highest total in the league.

For Berthiaume, it was three goals given up on 11 shots.

And for Coach Tom Webster, it was enough. He pulled his goalie and inserted Hrudey.

But the best of goalies can’t do much in the face of repeated turnovers. And the Kings weren’t quite finished in that category.

Halkidis gave it up again, this time on the right side. Leeman made a spectacular behind-the-back pass to Wendel Clark, who scored his 18th goal between Hrudey’s pads at 14:12 to give Toronto a 4-1 second-period lead.

Play was temporarily halted near the end of the period after Dave Taylor and Fergus collided. Fergus was skating down the right side, head momentarily down, when he ran into Taylor, who was waiting for him at mid-ice. Taylor put his shoulder down and caught Fergus squarely on top of the helmet, driving the Toronto center hard to the ice.

Fergus, experiencing pain in his chest, was fitted with a neck brace and taken to Centinela Hospital Medical Center.

The Kings cut the Maple Leaf lead to 4-2 at 4:40 of the final period. Gretzky took the puck behind the net on a power play, spotted Robitaille open on the left side and slid him the puck through the legs of Maple Leaf defender Dave Ellett.

Robitaille scored his team-leading 41st goal from 10 feet out.

The same pair teamed up again at 15:13, Robitaille scoring his 42nd goal to make it 4-3.