He Isn’t Only Sitting Duck

The audience in the Forum VIP lounge had already been plied with free soft drinks when Kings radio broadcaster Mike Allison entered the room and delivered the news.

“The Kings made a trade today,” Allison breathlessly announced.

The room fell silent.

“Wayne Gretzky is gone.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh,” the Kings boosters groaned, sounding thoroughly depressed.

Yes, Allison continued, the Kings had dealt Gretzky to Anaheim “for a couple of Wild Wings.”

The room fell silent again.

Either Allison had just told the most poorly timed joke of the season or no one in the room actually knew who, or what, a Wild Wing was.

Finally, Allison cleared his throat and wisely decided to can the lounge act. The crowd was in no mood. Allison gave them the cold truth, and nothing but: The Kings did make a trade Saturday, though not The Trade, sending Darryl Sydor and a 1996 draft pick to Dallas for Doug Zmolek and Shane Churla.

Gretzky? He remained a King a few more hours, his personal purgatory extended again because the Kings refuse to make a deal to release him from his present ninth-place shackles or appease him with an all-star winger or three.

The hottest rivalry in the league--Gretzky vs. the Kings--grows more embittered by the day. He wants out; the Kings say, “When we are good and ready.” He wants the team to trade for a 50-goal scorer; since that demand, the Kings have made three trades for four players--Kevin Stevens (10 goals this season), Craig Ferguson (one goal), Churla (three) and Zmolek (one).

Next week, Sam McMaster trades for a 10-goal scorer and the new King additions, as a group, will be halfway to 50.

Gretzky has noticed that the goofy little team down the freeway was capable of putting together a trade for Teemu Selanne, who in 1992-93 was a 76-goal scorer. The price tag was a promising young defenseman, Oleg Tverdovsky, and a promising young forward, Chad Kilger. The Kings couldn’t have put together a similar package for Winnipeg? Say, Aki Berg and Vitali Yachmenev?

No, the Kings continue to schedule press conferences to introduce guys named Zmolek and Churla to the local media. (Press conference ended hours ago; now, then, who are these people?) Gretzky, meanwhile, sits out back-to-back games with a “hip pointer,” missing Selanne’s historic first Southland appearance as a Duck, and stews.

There is a chance, however slim, that McMaster and Kings president Rogie Vachon know what they’re doing and just want to milk the Gretzky trade rumors every inch of the way to the March 20 deadline. The Kings are 5-18-7 on the road, their leading goal scorer is Dimitri Khristich and yet, because of Gretzky, they remain a runaway hit on the radio talk shows.

Gretzky-to-the-Rangers--that was an all-time classic. For a full week, the streets of Manhattan were flooded with tabloid ink. And when the deal fell through--for the time being, nudge, nudge--the New York headline writers treated it like the death of a leader of state.

“NO WAYNE,” grieved the Daily News in its Friday editions.

“GRETZKY DEAL DIES AS DOLLARS DON’T DO IT,” topped a sad sidebar detailing how and why the Rangers balked at Gretzky’s demand of a $7-million contract.

Luc Robitaille, reportedly the key component of the Ranger trade package, scored two goals on the night the Gretzky deal evaporated, eliciting these sour grapes from the Post: “WHO NEEDS WAYNE?”

Well, Mike Keenan, for one, if the Post can be trusted. The tabloid reported that on Tuesday, a “spy” overheard Keenan, the St. Louis Blues coach and general manager, “shouting into a pay phone” and demanding, “I don’t give a bleep if it takes 10 players. Give them the rest of the team except [Brett] Hull and [Shayne] Corson.”

Interesting proposition, that.

Ice time might be a problem for Larry Robinson, but that would be one way to improve the Kings overnight.

As comprised today, the Kings are no longer capable of beating the Ducks on their own rink. This is tangible slippage--the Kings were 4-0-2 in their previous six meetings with the Ducks.

Saturday, however, the Ducks snapped that streak on a goal by Marty McSorley with 53 seconds left in overtime. It was a beauty, too--stick poke by McSorley, all alone in front of the Kings’ net, over the right shoulder of a befuddled King goalie Kelly Hrudey.

Technically, McSorley and Hrudey are teammates and, ordinarily, McSorley doesn’t score many goals on Hrudey. But McSorley, perhaps bored by a drab 1-1 affair that saw the Ducks go scoreless for more than three minutes with a five-on-three advantage, turned a routine last-minute puck clearance into a scintillating game-deciding own goal.

And they say the Kings are incapable of playing creative hockey without Gretzky.

Saturday was a glimpse of Southern California hockey in its Gretzky-less future. The Ducks can hardly wait.

And if you put the question to Gretzky, the Ducks aren’t the only ones.