THE NHL / HELENE ELLIOTT : Battery Has Been Dead Too Long

General Manager Sam McMaster could offer no single, compelling reason for firing Coach Barry Melrose on Friday with seven games left in the Kings’ season. “We just want to jump-start the team,” McMaster said. “Miracles have happened.”

True, miracles have occurred in the same building that was the site of Friday’s news conference. In 1982, the Kings rallied from a five-goal deficit to defeat the Edmonton Oilers in a 1982 playoff game and eventually won the series. That was called the Miracle on Manchester.

But this team is too far gone for miracles, in too much disarray to get any impetus from a jump-start.

Desperation moves like this almost never work. The Minnesota North Stars fired Lorne Henning with two games left in the 1986-87 season and sent Glen Sonmor behind the bench but failed to make the playoffs. Phil Esposito, then general manager of the New York Rangers, fired Coach Michel Bergeron on April Fool’s Day in 1989, also with two games left in the season. They lost those games and were swept out of the playoffs.

More recently, the Lakers fired Randy Pfund and installed Magic Johnson to lead them to the playoffs last season, but even he failed.

Sending Vachon and Dave Taylor behind the bench is purely a public-relations ploy, and it’s destined to bomb. The enlightened minds running the Kings believe that because Vachon and Taylor are two of the club’s most popular alumni, fans will be charitable in judging them and in assessing the final days of this disastrous season.

For the Kings, a team whose financial future is even shakier than its on-ice prospects, the lure of $1-million playoff gates was powerful. They let the trading deadline pass without making a move, although they knew Tony Granato would sit out the rest of the season and that Rick Tocchet’s back problems would render him questionable. They’ve already stripped their Phoenix farm club of its best products. Firing Melrose was the only remaining option that had the slightest chance of stirring the team and didn’t cost anything.

“It doesn’t bother me (that it hasn’t worked for other teams),” Vachon said. “How long can we wait?”

They might have waited too long already. When they offered the coaching job to Mike Milbury more than a month ago, after a desultory 8-2 loss at Dallas on March 6, they should have kept searching. When the Kings won their next three games, McMaster, Vachon and owner Joe Cohen deluded themselves into believing it was a sign the team was getting better and they could get by with Melrose and not have to hire anyone else.

That was the time. Friday was too late.

“Yeah, it’s possible,” Vachon acknowledged. “You can always question yourself. Are we doing the right thing now? But we always thought the team would come around and the injuries would stop and we’d put together a run, but instead, we kept losing players.”

And they kept losing.

Well before Melrose lost his job, he lost his players’ respect. The dynamic coach who rode the coattails of circumstance to the Stanley Cup finals in 1993 had become egotistical and inflexible. He wanted the team gutted, instead of merely padded here and there, to improve it. He wanted bigger players, forgetting to maintain a balance of size and skill. He misused Tomas Sandstrom and Bob Kudelski, who have found success with other teams.

He should have altered his strategy to fit Sandstrom’s skills, not tried to shoehorn Sandstrom into his mucking, grinding style. That’s what distinguishes the great coaches, the ability to adjust to circumstances. Melrose wanted the circumstances to adjust to him.

He got the players he wanted, and they’ve clearly proven to be unequal to the task of making the playoffs. They’ve given up a league-high 160 goals and subjected their goalies to 1,464 shots, an average of more than 35 per game.

If his judgment of talent was so bad, why didn’t anyone say, “No, Barry, I won’t make that deal?” Nick Beverley tried and got fired. McMaster is still learning--and still trying to live down the Alex Zhitnik-Grant Fuhr trade, besides trading Mike Donnelly to a team the Kings are fighting for a playoff berth. And the Tocchet-for-Luc Robitaille deal might yet blow up in McMaster’s face if Tocchet’s back problems linger.

“I like this team. I think we added some good young players,” Melrose said. “We’re just not a deep organization and we couldn’t overcome all the injuries.”

Or all the mistakes, behind the bench and behind the fancy desks in the Forum offices.

Melrose said he has already received calls that bode well for his future employment, but he’s not sure what he will do. He does know he won’t be trading jobs with Milbury, who is a commentator for ESPN. “He wouldn’t come here,” Melrose said, smiling. “He’s smart.”

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Tour of Duty

Coaching record of Barry Melrose, who was fired by the Kings on Friday: REGULAR SEASON

Year W L T Pct. 1992-93 39 35 10 .524 1993-94 27 45 12 .393 1995 13 21 7 .402 Total 79 101 29 .447 PLAYOFFS 1992-93 13 11 .542