All of a Sudden, Melrose’s Journey Doesn’t Look So Bogus

The clubhouse of the Kings was bustling Saturday, goalie Kelly Hrudey’s cubbyhole suddenly aswarm with well-wishers (“I must be hot again,” he said), a grubby Wayne Gretzky wearing a new Vandyke beard and wondering what Toronto was like this time of year (“I’ve never played a playoff game there”) and rookie Warren Rychel glomming an autograph off of teammate Luc Robitaille for very special reasons of his own (“There’s a kid outside who’ll give me $5 for it”).

The Canucks had knuckled under, the Penguins were as extinct as dodo birds and the Kings were sanguine in their belief that it was now anybody’s Stanley Cup.

“I might be wrong and I might be stupid, but I expect to win,” said Coach Barry Melrose, a positive thinker from way back. “Why else would you be in this business if you didn’t expect to win?

“I came to this job saying that our goal was to win the Stanley Cup. I looked guys right in the eye and said: ‘If you’re scared to even talk about it, you’re never going to win it.’ ”

Now life’s a party on Melrose Place.

Now everybody’s upbeat.

Now they are talking the talk and walking the walk. Not making any promises--no Paul Westphals on these premises. But ever since Thursday’s ouster of Vancouver and the next night’s elimination of Pittsburgh, it has become clearer than ever before to the Kings that they are really in the thick of this thing.

It’s there for the taking.

“Pittsburgh’s gone, so why not the Kings?” as Mike Donnelly put it. An employee of the Kings handed their coach a handmade cardboard sign bearing tree-branch brackets that lead to the very top, X’ing out “4 More to Go” and “3 More to Go” and leaving free “2 More,” “1 More” and “The Big Win.”

Far from hiding it, Melrose proudly propped it on a mantle behind his desk. “Confidentially, she does one every year,” he said, chuckling. “But this time maybe she’s onto something.”

L.A. hockey is alive and not only well, but never better.

What pleases Melrose most about this is that, in one season’s time, he has slammed into the boards several preconceived notions about Los Angeles hockey, including some of the nonsense he heard from some who advised him not to take Bruce McNall’s call or accept a job here in the first place.

Not only is he proving them wrong, he has picked up some native lingo.

“People say you can’t win in that climate. That’s totally bogus,” Melrose said.

“People say L.A. is the place where people go to end their careers. Bogus. “People say you can’t win in L.A. under the management there. Heck, one of our biggest bonuses is having Mr. McNall, not one of our drawbacks. Anything negative about him is totally, totally bogus.”

By the first week of January, the coach was not quite so persuasive. He claims never to have lost faith, but after 6-0 and 7-2 losses to San Jose, 3-2 and 6-2 losses to Tampa Bay and the 10-2 pounding they took from a pitiful Philadelphia team, about the only thing that seemed totally bogus was the price the Kings charged for season tickets.

They eked out a 3-2 victory over Ottawa a week later, but got taken apart by the New York Rangers, 8-3, and kicked while they were down by the Washington Capitals, 10-3. The betting line formed up the sidewalk from the Forum Club as to which rookie coach would be served an eviction notice first, Melrose or Randy Pfund.

Three months later, Melrose is secure.

If you think this means he sleeps better at night, forget it. Melrose was up all night after Thursday’s game. He admits to having watched three episodes of a TV program he favors called “In Search Of . . . ,” which certainly seems appropriate, and Melrose estimated Saturday that he had slept no more than five or six of the previous 48 hours.

But he is bloodshot and wide-eyed out of excitement as much as stress. Melrose got an indication of his team’s newfound popularity when he and his assistant, Cap Raeder, attended a baseball game Friday night at Anaheim. An usher passed along an invitation to the coaches and their children from a party in an upstairs luxury box, where they were invited to view the game with people they had never before met.

“At least we don’t have to hide our faces in public,” Melrose said.

History?

He doesn’t care to hear about it.

“We don’t talk about the past around here any more,” Melrose said. “We don’t pat guys on the heads for what they do right and we don’t bury them for what they do wrong.

“The only thing it’s OK to talk about other than our winning the Stanley Cup this year is our winning the Stanley Cup next year. Anything else, don’t even bother me with it.”