STANLEY CUP PLAYOFFS : Kings Approach the Task Tonight With Desperation : Game 5: There is no margin for error with Canadiens standing one victory away from championship. Huddy, Taylor are injured.

The Kings aren’t acting as much like Stanley Cup finalists as Stanley Cup victims.

“Woe is me!” should be the team theme. They are dwelling on the bad bounces, the perceived bad calls and the twists of hockey fate that have contributed to the Montreal Canadiens’ 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven final series, with Game 5 tonight at Montreal’s Forum.

Any rage against Montreal goaltender Patrick Roy has been tempered by the relentless emphasis on positive thinking in the King dressing room. No one has shown any old-fashioned emotion about losing three consecutive overtime games.

Perhaps that is the difference between the teams. After a shoddy second-period effort in Game 4 in Los Angeles, Canadien center Guy Carbonneau showed his disgust by breaking his stick, letting his teammates know he would not accept a sub-par effort during the third period.

And Montreal came out and held the Kings to a standoff, which, considering its overtime record, is almost as good as being ahead. The Canadiens are peerless when it comes to playing for a tie.

For them, a tie at the end of regulation almost guarantees a victory. Montreal is 10-1 in playoff overtimes, unbeaten in overtime after losing to Quebec in Game 1 of the Adams Division semifinals. The Kings are 2-4 in overtime in the playoffs.

“I don’t think we deserve to be where we are right now,” said Wayne Gretzky, who has three points in the last two games. “It’s frustrating because we’ve played so hard. I’ve played on teams that haven’t played as well or as hard and been up, 3-1.”

One of the few emotional Kings is goaltender Kelly Hrudey, who remains as angry and ready to fight as he was in Game 1 of the first round, when his goal was to prove the “goofs and the dummies” wrong.

It’s no coincidence Hrudey has been playing some of his best hockey of the playoffs against the Canadiens. He became angry after Game 4 when someone asked whether he was proud of this King team. “That makes it sound like we’re writing our eulogy,” he said. “We’re still trying to win. I’m not proud of anything yet.”

Hrudey was in his first season with the Kings when they pulled off an improbable comeback in 1989 after trailing the Edmonton Oilers, 3-1. They won the final three games of that first-round series. But that year, two of those final three games were in Los Angeles. Now, they need to win the final three with two of those at the Forum in Montreal.

One team has recovered from a more difficult spot in the Cup final, however. In 1942, Toronto rebounded from a 3-0 deficit and beat Detroit. No other team has done it.

The Kings might be without two veterans, defenseman Charlie Huddy and right wing Dave Taylor. Huddy has a torn ligament in his right knee and is not expected back, and Taylor has a strained right shoulder. Taylor was hurt Saturday during Game 3 and said the injury has not improved.

Roy has stopped the Kings at every turn. And the young Montreal defense has thwarted them, preventing them from getting at Roy. The Kings are trying to crash the net, but are not getting many rebounds.

“I might be (upset) if we were losing 5-2 every night,” Hrudey said. “We’re not. We’re in every game. We’re right there. It’s just that something prohibits us right at the end.”

That happens often to be Roy. He is 15-4 in the playoffs and has lost only twice since Game 2 of the first round against Quebec.

“There’s no better goalie than Patrick Roy right now,” Montreal Coach Jacques Demers said. “Last year, there were doubts, but right now he is the greatest goaltender in the game.”

To have a chance at succeeding, the Kings have to regain the intensity they had against Toronto. Then, they truly seemed like a desperate team.

“You don’t change your style when you’re up, 2-0, or down, 2-0,” Gretzky said. “You keep playing hard. People may think because it’s a long way back that there’s a difference in your effort, but there really isn’t.

“The difference is, we’re going to have to play desperate. We’re going to have to play for our lives. (The Canadiens) may want to, but subconsciously, they don’t have to. They’re up, 3-1, they’ve got a little cushion. They can afford to make the odd mistake and lose the game. We can’t. We can’t afford to do anything wrong now.”

Said forward Tony Granato: “We’re down. Obviously, that was an emotional game (Monday). We played our hearts out. We threw everything we had at them, and we were a little short.”

Demers is confident, yet . . . .

“Wayne Gretzky’s team is never a beaten team,” Demers said. “I’m talking about Wayne. He is the whole focus of that team. . . . As soon as you think you beat Gretzky, that’s when he is going to beat you.”

For Gretzky, the only problem is that he now has to beat Demers three times in a row.

* TRIPLE CROWN LINE: Marcel Dionne, Charlie Simmer and Dave Taylor starred in obscurity. C10