STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS : LeClair’s New Role a Winner : Canadiens: Third shot of overtime sequence proves the charm for a player who usually has his nose to the grindstone.

John LeClair’s duties on the line with Kirk Muller and Brian Bellows are simple.

“Kirk is just a workaholic, he’s always on the puck, working hard, and he has a great playmaking touch,” LeClair said. “And Brian’s a natural goal-scorer. I muck and grind.”

LeClair’s role might be the least glamorous of the three, but his tenacity around the net served him well Saturday. Foiled on two shots at King goalie Kelly Hrudey, he persevered for a third, finally lifting the puck over the fallen Hrudey 34 seconds into overtime to give the Montreal Canadiens a 4-3 victory and a 2-1 series lead in the Stanley Cup finals.

“Every kid dreams of scoring an overtime goal in the Stanley Cup finals,” said LeClair, who idolized the Canadiens as a child in St. Albans, Vt., about 65 miles from Montreal. “This is a real special moment in my career. It’s probably the biggest goal of my career.”

It might turn out to be the most expensive, too. “He’s got to buy me breakfast now,” Bellows said. “He’s my roomie, and that’s our deal.”

It will prove a bargain for LeClair. Without the aid of Bellows, who held off three Kings by the right post, LeClair wouldn’t have had the time to take a third shot and probably wouldn’t have had the room to keep shooting, either.

“Everyone just did their jobs,” LeClair said.

But none did his job better than LeClair, a 6-foot-2, 205-pounder who is finishing his first full season with the Canadiens. LeClair, 23, was Montreal’s second pick and 33rd overall during the 1987 entry draft. He had been something of a disappointment, having difficulty adjusting from the brief schedule he played at the University of Vermont to the rigorous NHL schedule.

He showed progress this season, his third with the Canadiens’ organization, scoring 19 goals and 44 points in 72 games, and had two goals and six points during Montreal’s 17 previous playoff games this spring.

“I think he’s just coming into his own,” Montreal General Manager Serge Savard said. “He had a tough time in the past few years, but he’s coming along. I think it’s just experience. . . . He’s big, he’s got a great shot and he’s a good skater. He’s good at keeping the puck in the zone.”

Said Coach Jacques Demers: “I think John LeClair has been one of our strongest guys. Marty McSorley is strong, but so is John. I’d compare him to (Pittsburgh’s) Kevin Stevens, and that’s probably the best compliment I could pay him. He’s big and strong and I told him he could be like Kevin Stevens.

“You’ve got to give him credit. He got hit . . . through all that heavy traffic, he got hit a lot.”

LeClair kept the pressure on Hrudey on the final play, beginning with his first shot from the left of the slot.

“The first one was a nice feed from Kirk Muller,” LeClair said. “He gave me the pass and it just squirted past the net. I thought Brian Bellows would get the rebound, but he made a great play getting the other two forwards to the far post.

“The second time I shot, it came back to me, and then I just had a lot of net to shoot at.”

As LeClair discovered after watching a replay, Bellows actually kept three Kings at bay to ensure LeClair a clear shot at the net. “I had hold of Mark Hardy and I saw McSorley and (Tony) Granato trying to sneak behind, and I just tried to slow them up,” Bellows said. “The only time I was worried was when I thought I was going to knock Hardy over the net. I didn’t want a penalty in overtime.”

LeClair, who made one move too many on a breakaway earlier in the game and lost control of the puck, wasn’t about to miss his third overtime chance.

“Brian Bellows made the play happen,” he said. “That pick enabled me to get free. I had a wide-open net.”

With Montreal’s overtime playoff record 8-1 before the game, the Canadiens felt good when the third period ended.

“Everybody was real confident in the locker room (before the overtime) and we were talking positive things,” LeClair said. “Right now, we have a lot of confidence and that confidence comes from Patrick Roy in net. We know they’re going to have to work hard to get their goal. It’s not a sense that we’re unbeatable, but we’re definitely not underconfident.

“I wasn’t on top of my list (of potential overtime scorers). We have a lot of scorers, but if you’re going to win a championship, you need a lot of guys to chip in. It seems like tonight was my night to chip in.”