Melrose Changes Tune : NHL playoffs: After watching Kings score flurry of goals against Calgary, he embraces wide-open style for series against Canucks.

Maybe it was all a season-long charade by King Coach Barry Melrose. Every so often, he said he wanted his players to be like the Chicago Blackhawks.

He wanted out of the Smythe Division, stylistically speaking. Melrose wanted checkers and working-class players. Essentially, defenseman Paul Coffey was traded so that Melrose could get his kind of guys--Gary Shuchuk and Marc Potvin.

Now, 33 goals and one playoff series later, Melrose indulged in a bit of revisionist history on the eve of Game 1 of the Smythe Division final today against the Canucks, becoming Mr. Offense and dismissing his checking, grinding coaching past. Or, he could be a realist, knowing his personnel doesn’t necessarily have the tools to play the game he spoke about all season. For example, Shuchuk and Potvin were sidelined most of the Calgary series.

Forcing the Kings to stray from their natural scoring tendencies would be like asking the Chicago Bulls to go into a four-corner, slowdown offense.

“For some reason, people think if you don’t have a goals-against (total) under 200, you’re a bad team,” Melrose said Saturday. “You don’t play good hockey. Everybody thinks that.”

Melrose mimicked hockey’s conventional wisdom.

“Calgary is going to beat us because they can check,” he said. “Vancouver will beat us because they can check. Boston would beat you--if they weren’t out of the playoffs--because they can check. Chicago would beat us--if they weren’t out of the playoffs--because they can check. It’s just hockey mentality.

“We beat Calgary. We scored 33 goals on them. Checking didn’t work so good then. I don’t think you can check a team for 60 minutes.”

Vancouver Coach Pat Quinn has watched tapes of the King-Flame series and noticed that the Kings were not getting caught up ice as much in their aggressive offensive style, pointing out they were more disciplined in their positioning.

But . . .

“Edmonton learned a tough lesson early on about playing run-and-gun hockey in the playoffs,” Quinn said of the Oilers’ first-round series loss against the Kings in 1982.

Said Melrose: “I’d rather win four Cups and get burned once.”

After defeating Edmonton in 1982, the Kings’ Stanley Cup bid was stopped by the Canucks and goaltender Richard Brodeur in five games. The Kings have never gone past the second round in the playoffs. The only other time they met the Canucks in the playoffs was in a first-round series won by the Kings, 4-2, in 1991.

Two years ago, the Kings were the favorites against the Canucks. This time, their positions are reversed. The Canucks are two-time Smythe Division champions.

The Kings were 2-7 against the Canucks during the regular season, losing the final three meetings while being outscored, 21-12. They were 0-4 at the Pacific Coliseum, where they were outscored, 23-9.

Perhaps the biggest difference came when the teams played short-handed. Vancouver scored seven short-handed goals, three by Pavel Bure. And the Kings? Zero.

Neither team had a potent power play during its first-round series. Vancouver, despite the late-season addition of point man Murray Craven, was four for 29 against the Winnipeg Jets. The Kings were five for 40 against the Flames.

Moments after the Kings clinched the Calgary series, Wayne Gretzky said of the Kings’ play during manpower advantages: “Let’s face it, our power play wasn’t very good. I hate to talk about it right now, but we’ve got to get it going. It will be a key to the next series.”

Melrose said this series would not be as acrimonious as the one against Calgary, saying his players didn’t feel the same level of animosity toward the Canucks.

“Well, Barry didn’t have to play against the Canucks nine times,” said Tony Granato, who had two goals and three assists in the first round but spent most of his time irritating the Flames.

Unlike the Flames, the Canucks have a legitimate, game-breaking star player in Bure, who scored 60 goals and had 110 points during the regular season. The Canucks also are better in goal than the Flames. Kirk McLean, unless he falls apart, is no sieve like Jeff Reese. A second-team All-Star in 1992, McLean made 54 appearances and was 28-21-5 this season, with three shutouts and a goals-against average of 3.39. And he was 12-0-2 in his first 14 home games. In the first round against the Jets, McLean turned in a brilliant performance in Game 4, almost single-handedly winning it, 3-1, by stopping 29 shots.

The Kings will open with rookie goaltender Robb Stauber, who started and won the last three games of the Calgary series after being demoted to No. 3 for the first two. Stauber’s goals-against average got worse as the Kings moved toward a wide-open style in the final two games. He gave up one goal in Game 4, four in Game 5 and six in Game 6.

Having played the Canucks nine times, the Kings don’t expect any major surprises. But the Kings will look a bit different as they face the Canucks at full strength for the first time.