THE GREAT WHITE WAY : Gretzky Has Been Rejuvenated Amid the Chaos That Is Manhattan

The tension that frayed his nerves and turned his legs to lead last season has vanished. Wayne Gretzky strides quickly, nimbly, his feet and mind attuned to the bold rhythm of the city he now calls home.

“I really love playing and living in New York,” he said. “There’s such high energy here. Everybody’s fighting for that same cab.”

Relieved of the burdens he shouldered in Los Angeles--some self-imposed when he urged King executives early last January to decide whether to make a run at the Stanley Cup or retool--Gretzky has been rejuvenated. Having long ago conquered the NHL record book, he is conquering New York in his first months with the Rangers.

Gretzky, who will be 36 in January, ranks third in the NHL with eight goals and 25 points in 20 games. That’s a 103-point pace, which would be his best total since he had 130 points and won the last of his 10 scoring titles in 1993-94.

Centering for 21-year-old Swede Niklas Sundstrom and former King Luc Robitaille, Gretzky has at least one point in every game but three, and his 15-game point-scoring streak is a season-best in the NHL. His pinpoint passing has helped him rank second in the league with 14 power-play points and has made the Rangers’ power play the NHL’s most effective, at 28.2%.

“I’m amazed how a guy his age can continue dominating the way he does,” said former Montreal coach Jacques Demers, who has known Gretzky since their World Hockey Assn. days in the late 1970s. “Every year at the start, people say, ‘He’s done. Look at what he’s done in the past, all the hockey he’s played, all the Canada Cups and playoffs.’ But it’s just not true.

“He’s still ‘the Great One.’ Look at the young pups in this league, like the [Jaromir] Jagrs. He’s still ahead of them.”

Not bad for a supposedly fading veteran who took a pay cut to sign with the Rangers as a free agent for two years at barely more than $5 million a year. He has been among the few bright spots on a team that has, surprisingly, stumbled to a 6-10-4 start and otherwise struggles to generate offense.

“I’m excited to go to the rink here,” he said. “My only pressure is to play hockey. I don’t have to worry about selling tickets. I don’t have to worry about talking to players as far as being the captain. I can just play hockey and I really enjoy that part. I don’t have to worry about a lot of things I used to worry about.”

His relief is obvious to all who see him. Former King Rick Tocchet, now with the Boston Bruins, said the last time their teams met, Gretzky controlled the puck as if it were tied to his stick with a string.

“You can see in his face he’s enjoying things again, that he knows he’s got a lot of talent on his team,” Tocchet said. “You could see he has that bounce back. A lot of things drained him in L.A. In New York, it’s a different situation and he’s not carrying the franchise.”

He never lost his enthusiasm, Gretzky said, not through former owner Bruce McNall’s bankruptcy, the Kings’ misbegotten sale to Joe Cohen and Jeffrey Sudikoff, the second sale to Philip Anschutz and Ed Roski or the circus that preceded Gretzky’s trade to St. Louis Feb. 27. The ice was his refuge, the place he could escape accusations he was manipulative and overstepping his bounds. Playing with a spectacularly untalented cast, he had 81 points in 66 games with the Kings and added 21 points in 18 games with the Blues.

“It was home for me. I didn’t want to move on. But it also got to the point where the team was in a situation where they were going to rebuild and they had to make a decision about the route they were going to take,” Gretzky said of why he forced the Kings’ hand.

“I was the guy who took the brunt of it on the basis of making somebody make a decision, are they going to go for it or are they going to go young? And they made the decision to go young, which is the right decision and I hope they do great. It’s a great city.

“It was never that I was unhappy, but it was stressful on everyone. I was in a situation where maybe I was moving, I had three kids in school and my wife enjoyed that life. The weight of the world is on your shoulders and that makes it difficult to play and love it the way you should love it.”

The Kings made a last-minute effort to keep him, but Anschutz angered him by implying his motives were purely financial.

“He got my dander up,” Gretzky said. “He’s a tough businessman, which is why he’s successful. It really never was over money. As a matter of fact, they offered me a lot of money to stay and be part of it. It was never about money. But it’s over now and I have no hard feelings. I’m appreciative of the time I spent there.”

After the Blues acquired him for Craig Johnson, Patrice Tardif, Roman Vopat and two draft picks, Gretzky and his wife, Janet--a St. Louis native--looked at homes with the intent of settling in St. Louis. He began discussing a deal that would carry him through retirement and into the front office, accepting that he would have to deal with hard-driving Coach Mike Keenan every day.

Deferred payments became a sticking point, and Gretzky halted talks when the playoffs began so he could concentrate on hockey. The talks never resumed because several of the Blues’ owners, after hearing Keenan question whether Gretzky was injured or simply ineffective after the Blues lost Game 2 of their second-round series against Detroit, withdrew the club’s three-year, $23-million offer. That Gretzky had 16 points in 13 games and helped St. Louis push Detroit to seven games didn’t sway them.

But by then, Gretzky had grown weary of Keenan.

“Mike does a lot of things to motivate his team and push his players to the limit, and I understand that and I can accept that,” Gretzky said. “I really didn’t have a problem with Michael. But I also said, ‘Yeah, it’s not easy to play for him.’ It is tough. It’s difficult.

“I don’t think he treated me badly, but I had a choice whether I wanted that or not wanted it, and I chose to move on.”

Ranger General Manager Neil Smith, who had tried to acquire Gretzky before the Blues got him, had continued to follow him out of curiosity. When Gretzky filed for free agency July 1, Smith didn’t waste time.

“I felt he was St. Louis’ best player in the playoffs,” Smith said. “I always thought of it as a no-brainer. There were a lot of people who thought he wasn’t going to improve our team and that it was going to detract from our team, that it was going to end up being a problem, but I always shook my head in disbelief that anyone could ever even say that.”

Mark Messier, the Rangers’ captain and Gretzky’s teammate with the Edmonton Oilers, recommended that Smith sign Gretzky. Messier insisted that Gretzky would regain his edge if he were in a more competitive environment than he was in Los Angeles, and so far Messier has been right.

“As good a start as he’s gotten, he could easily have another 10 or 15 points,” Messier said. “It’s been so good that I think he’s really erased all the question marks about whether he could adjust to the team and how well he could play and what he could contribute.”

With Messier the Rangers’ locker-room leader, Gretzky is happy to play a subordinate role. He declined Adam Graves’ offer of an alternate captaincy because he wanted to blend in quietly--as quietly as the NHL’s all-time leading scorer could blend in.

“Wayne keeps a low profile,” Ranger goalie Mike Richter said. “He says the needed thing and he doesn’t let his status get in the way. There have are been no ripples, like you might expect with someone that big coming in, and surprisingly so. We’re starting to see how great he is. It’s impressive when you see on a daily basis what he does. He’s amazing.”

Gretzky credits his success to Messier and to his former Edmonton coach, Glen Sather, his coach with Team Canada in the World Cup. Sather urged Gretzky to shoot more and he has taken 85 shots, second in the league. That’s an average of 4.3 shots a game, up from 2.4 last season.

“Everybody’s been saying, ‘You’re getting a lot of room and you’re getting a lot of shots,’ ” Gretzky said. “Obviously, my line has played well, with Sunny and Luc, but the biggest thing is that Mark opens up so much ice for me when he goes out there and he does his thing. He plays such a power game, yet he’s got a lot of finesse. Consequently, I’m seeing more opportunities than I have for a long time.”

That he’s playing alongside Robitaille is an odd twist. In an emotional news conference in July 1994, Robitaille implied that Gretzky was jealous enough of his popularity to engineer a trade that sent him to Pittsburgh. But Robitaille recently called that “water under the bridge” and said they coexist peacefully.

“Personally, I’m the happiest guy he’s here because I’m playing with him and he’s a great playmaker,” Robitaille said. “A big part of it is, he’s having a lot of fun. He’s been through a lot the last few years and now he’s really enjoying it. . . . He’s not carrying the team--well, he still is carrying the team but not because he has to, but because everything around him is better and he’s playing so well.”

Despite the Rangers’ rocky start, Gretzky enjoys his new situation enough to have already thought about playing beyond the end of his contract. He has kept his home in Thousand Oaks so he can enjoy the leisure of off-seasons in California and the hectic pace of New York during the winter.

“The fans are tough, but one thing I learned about this city in the short time I’ve been here is that they want to see people work hard. If you play your hardest and do whatever you can do and try to win for the hockey club [they’ll be satisfied],” he said.

“Certainly they expect and want you to win, no question. But most of all they expect effort and I think through effort you somehow can find a way to be successful.”

Even at getting that last available cab.