Ronning Helps Vancouver Beat Kings in Overtime, 2-1 : Game 3: He scores at 3:12 of the extra period after Gretzky ties the game in the third period.

In the end, it came down to the Vancouver Canucks’ Cliff Ronning and the Kings’ Kelly Hrudey.

Face to face.

A game and perhaps a season on the line.

Ronning came in alone from the right side, the puck on his stick. Hrudey, the goalie, came out to meet him, but Ronning skated past him and, at the last possible instant, backhanded the puck into the net 3:12 into overtime Monday night at Pacific Coliseum for a 2-1 Vancouver victory and a 2-1 Canuck lead in their best-of-seven, first-round series against the Kings.

Game 4 will be played at the Coliseum Wednesday night.

The final scoring sequence began with Todd Elik’s pass that bounced off Luc Robitaille’s stick.

The puck was controlled by Trevor Linden in the middle. He fed Geoff Courtnall, who, in turn, passed to Dana Murzyn. Murzyn’s shot was blocked by Hrudey, but bounced out to Ronning, who also had the winning goal in the series opener and now has four goals in the three games.

“They just had us outmanned,” said Hrudey of the final shot. “I tried to take the angle away from him (Ronning), but he put it upstairs.”

Asked if he thought this victory gave the Canucks the confidence they may have lacked coming into the series as heavy underdogs, Hrudey replied: “I don’t want to read their minds. I don’t want to think about how they’re playing as much as I want us to play well.”

It wasn’t hard to read the minds of the Canucks in their dressing room. The joy was obvious in every corner.

“I was very fortunate the puck came to me,” said Ronning, describing his game-winning shot for the umpteenth time. “No one was on me. I was about to shoot when he (Hrudey) came at me, but I got it on the backhand.

“Our goalies have been standing on their heads. Who cares who scores. That’s the attitude in this dressing room. We just want to win.”

The Kings’ Tony Granato focused on the third period rather than the finish.

“We had so many opportunities to finish them off,” he said. “Kelly did a hell of a job for us to keep us in it, but we just couldn’t finish them off.”

Wayne Gretzky kept them in it in regulation, scoring the tying goal in the third period, but unlike Game 2, he could not produce any overtime heroics.

“I do the best I can,” he said. “I’m not superhuman.”

The Kings were outshot, 6-0, in the overtime and 39-31 in the game played before a sellout crowd of 16,123.

From the beginning, it was a goalie duel between Hrudey and Vancouver’s Kirk McLean.

Talk about being thrown into the fire. McLean hadn’t started a game since Feb. 21 because of tendinitis in his left wrist. He hadn’t been in a game since March 1.

But when Troy Gamble, who had been so brilliant in the net for the Canucks in Game 2, couldn’t answer the bell for Game 3 because of flu, McLean stepped in.

And stepped on the Kings, holding them down for nearly 52 minutes.

But with a little more than eight minutes to play, John Tonelli dug the puck out from behind the boards and fed Gretzky, skating through the crease. Gretzky flipped the puck over McLean’s shoulder with 8:07 to play in regulation, tying it at 1-1.

The Canucks, sticking to their new, aggressive offensive game plan, were clearly the better team on the ice in the first 10 minutes of the game.

But not on the scoreboard.

The Canucks kept the puck in the Kings’ zone the majority of the time, but brilliant goal tending by Hrudey kept it out of the net.

Vancouver got the first five shots on goal and 10 of the first 11. The Kings didn’t get their first shot until nearly five minutes had elapsed.

But after 20 minutes, the game was scoreless.

Not for long.

At the end of the first period, Robitaille was called for holding and 41 seconds into the second period, the Canucks cashed in on the power play.

Doing the damage were those names suddenly all too familiar to King fans.

Courtnall bounced a pass off the right boards to Ronning. Ronning skated out to the right circle where John McIntyre came over to pick him up.

But McIntyre got there an instant too late as Ronning fired from the inside edge of the right circle.

With the puck sailing high to the short side, it had to be a perfect shot.

It was, sailing just inside the right post and just over Hrudey’s left shoulder to give Vancouver a 1-0 lead.

It was the 13th and 14th points for Courtnall, Ronning and Linden, the line that has turned the jeers to cheers in Vancouver.

As the night wore on, however, most of the cheering came for punches thrown and bodies tackled as the game turned ugly.

The Canucks knew they had a chance to take a 2-1 lead in a series that they weren’t even expected to be in. The Kings could feel themselves losing their grip on a series they were supposed to coast through.

The result was more fights than faceoffs, more body shots than slap shots.

Half the respective teams seemed to square off at one time or another. It was McIntyre versus Murzyn, Steve Kasper against Ronning, Marty McSorley rolling around with Gino Odjick.

All the while, the clock kept ticking away on the game.

And the Kings.

King Notes

A Plane Advantage: The Canucks took a charter flight home after Game 2 Saturday night. With the overtime and the changing of the clocks, the Canucks didn’t touch down on Vancouver soil until 4 a.m. Coach Pat Quinn made Sunday’s practice optional and only 11 Canucks showed up. The Kings, on the other hand, slept in Sunday, practiced in L.A. and then took a late-afternoon flight on their private jet to Vancouver. . . . Vancouver left wing Greg Adams played in his second consecutive game after missing previous 13.