STANELY CUP FINALS : It’s Canadiens Who Are Kings : Game 5: They score first and beat L.A., 4-1, to win their 24th championship. After game, Gretzky hints at retirement.

The Canadiens hoarded the happiness Wednesday night and let the Kings take their pick of almost every other emotion in the aftermath of Montreal’s 24th Stanley Cup championship.

While Montreal’s players were circling the Forum’s ice with the Cup, attained by a 4-1 victory in Game 5 to take the series, four games to one, a range of feelings swirled in the Kings’ dressing room and nearby corridors. Everything seemed to stop making sense after the Kings’ Wayne Gretzky hinted at his possible retirement.

There was anger, disappointment, shock and artifice in the air in what had to be one of the craziest moments in King history. The Kings’ 26-year quest for the Stanley Cup had ended, courtesy of the wall known as goaltender Patrick Roy and the coaching of Jacques Demers. Roy’s technical brilliance and unflappable nature won him his second Conn Smythe Trophy, given to the most valuable player in the playoffs.

Although Roy had a 16-4 record and a 2.13 goals-against average, he gave the credit to Demers.

“The key player on our team was Jacques Demers,” Roy said. “The call he made on Marty McSorley was the turning point of the series. If we didn’t make that call, we would have gone to L.A. down, 2-0. Our chances would have been small to win the series.”

Perhaps their chances would have been smaller than the illegal curvature of McSorley’s stick. Demers made one of the more dramatic gestures in hockey history by calling for a measurement of McSorley’s stick in the latter stages of Game 2, after the Kings had won the series opener. The gamble paid off and the Canadiens scored on the ensuing power play, won the game in overtime and never trailed after the memorable coaching maneuver.

On Wednesday, Toronto General Manager Cliff Fletcher revealed that the Maple Leafs had spotted McSorley’s illegal stick, but decided it was too big a risk to call for a measurement in Game 7 of the Campbell Conference finals against the Kings.

During the traditional postseries handshake, Demers pulled McSorley aside and spoke to him. Earlier, Gretzky had given Demers McSorley’s stick.

McSorley was one of the key factors in getting the Kings past the second round, which had always been an immovable obstacle.

“There’s been a lot of good things and a lot of bad, and I’ve taken responsibility,” McSorley said. “I’m not going to go and hide.”

Said Gretzky: “Marty did so much. We would not be in the final without him.”

Almost lost in the wild aftermath was the sense of accomplishment, the many people who contributed to the King success. While it might have been hard to reflect upon immediately, there was an undercurrent of pride. King goaltender Kelly Hrudey put on the playoff performance of his life, outplaying every other goaltender except Roy. And King Coach Barry Melrose, in his NHL rookie year, got more out of his team than anyone had expected at the start of the season.

“I told Jacques: ‘If I had to lose to somebody, I’m glad it was you,’ ” Melrose said of his own former coach from their World Hockey Assn. days. “He is a great man and I love him. Hockey needs more coaches like Jacques Demers. “

Even Melrose’s disappointment was tempered when he starting talking about the Kings’ season.

“There is a story or a play, it starts out: These are the best of times, these are the worst of times,” he said. “With me, that’s what it is. It is the worst of times because we lost. But it is the best of times because I have been blessed with a great group of players who played their hearts out for me, and they played their hearts out tonight.”

Clearly, the Kings were playing on heart Wednesday after a demoralizing set of circumstances, having lost three consecutive overtime games to the Canadiens after winning the series opener. After almost two months of playoff intensity, constant travel and injuries, they looked as if they were playing on fumes.

Left wing Warren Rychel had been playing with an injured knee since the first round and said it might require surgery. Defenseman Charlie Huddy, who was not expected to return because of a torn knee ligament, refused to stay out of the lineup when it became clear he would not damage his knee further. Right wing Dave Taylor’s strained shoulder kept him out of the second consecutive game, and he may have ended his NHL playing career.

Taylor, with the Kings for 16 seasons, said he will make his decision regarding retirement in the next couple of weeks, after he sits down with his family and King management.

Still, the ailing Kings stayed in Game 5 until about midway through the second period. McSorley’s wrist shot from the slot, which ricocheted off both posts, was the only puck to elude Roy. It tied the game, 1-1, at 2:40 of the second period.

But the Canadiens took the air out of any King momentum with a goal on the next shift. Vincent Damphousse tried a wraparound and failed, but the puck was left at the top of the crease and center Kirk Muller alertly put it past Hrudey to make it, 2-1, at 3:51. Montreal added a power-play goal at 11:31, taking a 3-1 lead into the third period.

With the crowd going wild, the third period was like a prelude to the Canadiens’ parade, a partylike atmosphere. Paul DiPietro punctuated the victory and Stanley Cup No. 24 with his second goal of the game, at 12:06.

“I’m in my ninth year, and sometimes you don’t know if it’s ever going to come true,” Muller said. “No one thinks we have any superstars on this club, but that’s OK, we won a championship.”

Montreal center Stephan Lebeau knew the Canadiens did not want to flirt with one more go-around with overtime.

“We did not want to go into that again tonight,” Lebeau said. “I think that’s why we played hard. We knew once we got the lead, we would have to keep going at them and we did.”

Said John LeClair, who had two game-winners in overtime: “The crowd was deafening. The excitement was uncontrollable. When you get the chance to walk with the Stanley Cup, you better do it. You’ve got to go with the killer instinct.”

For the Kings, the healing process will start today. It’s hard to tell what will take longer to recover from--the loss or the postgame. Lose a Stanley Cup? Hey, it happens. But lose Gretzky?

Maybe Melrose was trying to convince himself, saying: “Everything will be fine.”