Kings Know Time for Jokes Is Over : Hockey: Webster returns to hold two practices in one day. Vachon says a trade is possible.

There were some sounds missing from the Kings’ practice Monday morning.

No laughs echoing off the walls.

No pucks crashing and ricocheting off the boards.

And no friendly kidding, anywhere.

A five-game losing streak and a six-game winless streak, punctuated by a disastrous trip that has plunged the club to within one point of fifth place, have taken their toll.

Now the sounds are of gloom and doom: Coach Tom Webster cracking a whip at the team’s Culver City practice rink and General Manager Rogie Vachon going even further, threatening that heads will roll unless things change. And fast.

In other words, a trade?

“Everything is possible,” Vachon said. “We’ve had a lot of injuries, a lot of excuses, but excuses are not good enough anymore. (A trade) is an avenue we can’t necessarily ignore.

“I’m not talking about the next couple of weeks. I’m talking about in the next couple of days. They had better show me they want to stay here. I haven’t liked what I’ve seen the whole year.”

The Kings could use a center and a defenseman. One name that has surfaced is that of Pittsburgh Penguin center Ron Francis.

The Kings would still love to deal with the Quebec Nordiques for the rights to top draft pick Eric Lindros without tearing apart their own club.

“If our players work hard every night and give 100% and they still lose, we’ll take the blame for not putting the right players on the ice,” Vachon said. “But I don’t see that from every player. You look at our team on paper and it is scary. But what you see on paper is not what you see on the ice.”

One familiar sound was back Monday, the voice of Webster shouting orders.

Five games into a 12-game suspension for throwing a stick in anger at referee Kerry Fraser, Webster has returned from a week in Phoenix to at least assume command of his slumping team in practice.

Webster, his own fate along with that of his team on the line, has gone back to basics.

All the way back.

It looked like the first day of training camp: two practices a day. And no pucks out there at first. Only skates.

Back and forth, back and forth the Kings went across the rink, trying to rebuild the stamina and intensity that seem to have deserted them.

“Whatever it takes,” said a determined Webster as he watched his players start and stop and spin and sweat in the hushed rink.

Everybody has an idea what it will take to salvage this season. But beyond the standard talk of finding more effective line combinations or reinvigorating the power play comes a feeling, certainly backed up by the sight of too many pucks lost to lack of hustle and muscle, that this team has lost its heart.

There are rumors that everybody but owner Bruce McNall and superstar Wayne Gretzky are in danger of joining the nation’s unemployed.

Sources in the Kings’ organization insist, however, that Webster’s job is safe, for now, that nothing will be done until this club, beset with suspensions and injuries, has had at least a couple of months to play together as a unit.

Webster had a simple solution: “Winning cures everything.”

Last week was a strange one for him. Vachon, angered by Webster’s fourth ejection in two seasons, his second for stick throwing, and the longest suspension of a coach in league history, shipped Webster off to Phoenix, ostensibly to scout the Roadrunners, the club’s minor league team.

It may be the first instance of a coach being sent to the minors because of a poor performance.

It was bad enough for Webster to be in exile while his assistant coaches, Rick Wilson and Cap Raeder, ran the club. It was worse having to endure a 0-3 Kings’ trip from a distance, two of the defeats being administered by the San Jose Sharks and the Nordiques, the two worst teams in the league.

But Webster couldn’t even watch.

Because he was with the Roadrunners, Webster had to keep running to the phone to get King updates from his daughter, Stacy, back home.

“I obviously have remorse for what happened,” Webster said of the suspension. “I wish I could have been with my hockey club while it was struggling. I wish I could be there to be a part of it, but I can’t. The hardest part is not being able to do my job and being a burden for a lot of other people.”

On Thursday night, when the Kings were in Chicago losing to the Blackhawks, Webster was in an Arizona restaurant with the Phoenix coaches. He watched his club fall behind early.

And then, the restaurant people changed the channel.

“Wait a minute,” Webster protested, “those are the Kings and I’m their coach.”

“Sorry,” he was told, “it’s time for the Phoenix Suns’ game.”

There was little Webster could do but swallow his frustration.

Which is the way he has to operate once he returns behind the bench tonight for an exhibition game, and then regularly, starting New Year’s Eve.

Webster was ejected from one game last season for telling an official who he thought had made a bad call that perhaps “your helmet is squeezing your brain too tightly.”

Webster was also ejected, and suspended, for getting into a fistfight with the Calgary Flames’ Doug Gilmour.

And, of course, there was Webster’s now-famous javelin act with a stick, once last season and then Nov. 16.

Is he worried that, upon his return, the officials will remember his outburst and favor the opposition when it comes to making close calls?

“They can’t,” Webster said. “I’m serving my time, paying my dues.

“But I can’t do that . . . anymore. I’m working at being very mellow. I’m trying to show restraint. There are obviously boundaries I can’t overstep.

“But I’m not going into a shell. I am not going to stop being myself. I just have to control myself better.”