Now It’s Up to the Kings to Lash Out : Hockey: Players are caught off guard by McNall’s announcement that he might resign as president.

Would he? Could he? Should he?

Those were the questions on the minds of the Kings Friday afternoon as they attended a Forum practice, still a bit shell-shocked by the news that had greeted them in the morning newspaper.

Their owner, Bruce McNall, deeply anguished over a streak that had stretched to 0-5-1 and plunged the team into fourth place in the Smythe Division, announced Thursday that he is considering stepping down as club president if the slide continues. He said, however, that he would not under any circumstances sell the team.

Even Thursday night’s 2-1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets, hottest team in the NHL, was not enough to dissuade McNall from the idea that perhaps his team needs a stronger hand on the reins.

Although Wayne Gretzky is McNall’s star player, business partner and close friend, he didn’t know anything about the plan until he read about it in the paper.

“I think it’s more emotional than anything else,” Gretzky said. “No one wants to win more than he wants to win. He’s emotionally exhausted.”

McNall is also at his wit’s end. This was to be the year for the Kings. Coming off perhaps their best season, they had made a trade to reunite Gretzky with Jari Kurri, his linemate on the Edmonton Oilers.

But NcNall’s visions of a Stanley Cup were replaced by a nightmare: Gretzky off to his poorest start, Kurri doing even worse, and the Kings sinking slowly toward the bottom of the division they ruled a year ago.

“I can change coaches,” McNall said Thursday night. “I can change the general manager or change the personnel, but I eventually have to ask what I have done wrong. After a while, I have to question my style of management.

“An organization like the Edmonton Oilers won five Stanley Cup championships through intimidation and fear. That’s not my personality. I can’t be that way. But I have to question if my management style is proper for hockey. I owe that to the players, to the fans and to the city.”

His losing experience with the Kings in his 3 1/2 years of ownership has been particularly tough on McNall because he has been a winner in almost every other business he owns. His coin and antiquities business, his memorabilia auctions and his race horses all have been successful. He bought the Toronto Argonauts last year and this season they won the Grey Cup, symbol of the championship of the Canadian Football League.

The Stanley Cup has been another matter.

McNall made a rare appearance at a King practice Wednesday to express his concerns to his players.

“I would step aside,” he said Thursday, “and put someone else in as president . . . someone between myself and (General Manager) Rogie (Vachon) who could do the things I’m not capable of doing, if that is necessary. I hope and pray it is not, because I get great enjoyment from being with the players. But if I thought that somehow I was preventing the team from doing better, I would have to do it.”

McNall, 41, has spared no expense when it comes to the Kings. He has the league’s largest payroll. He spent $5 million to buy the team a private jet to ease the travel burden, then spent about $4 million more to renovate the plane.

Does he think he has pampered his players too much?

“I don’t question it myself,” he said, “but it has been questioned. Rogie has questioned it, the coaches have questioned it, the players have questioned it and the media have questioned it.”

McNall would not put a time frame on making a decision about whether to step down if the situation doesn’t improve.

“At some point in time,” is all he would say, “maybe the end of the season.”

McNall conceded that he never expected it to come to this.

“There are a lot of reasons, a lot of excuses,” he said. “But the bottom line is, I was concerned with the commitment. I’ve been as low as I could get. The first 30 games is not what I expected. I could blame (Coach Tom) Webster’s antics. I could blame the players. But I have to include myself in there.

“And I cannot change my personality. I cannot start throwing chairs. Or sticks.”

Why hasn’t McNall’s success in other businesses led to success in hockey?

“I’m basically a salesman,” he explained. “My management style is leaving each person to do for himself. And I’ve been pretty successful, but maybe sports is different.”

When told of their owner’s remarks, the Kings reacted with lowered heads and quiet resolve.

“He truly is the greatest owner you could ever have in pro sports,” goalie Kelly Hrudey said. “The problem is not Bruce, it’s not Rogie and it’s not the coaches. The problem is the effort we are putting forth. We are letting down everyone in the organization.”

Said Webster: “He (McNall) has delivered his message loud and clear. Now it’s up to us.”

Larry Robinson, a 20-year NHL veteran, said he has never heard an owner talk as McNall did.

“Here’s a guy who has given us everything,” Robinson said, “and if he feels we’ve let him down, it really makes you think.”