Kings Making Offers the Players Can Refuse

You listen, and there’s enough dialogue for “The Godfather, Part IV,” the one with Al Pacino’s son running a hockey team.

It’s business, not personal. Although so far, the only businesses to benefit from negotiations between the Kings and Jozef Stumpel are long-distance carriers.

The phone companies have collected tolls from agent Benji Robins, who is trying to keep Stumpel on top of a process that began during the second week of August and should have begun much earlier.

On Friday, the message from the team was to take or leave a three-year deal that would pay Stumpel $2.45 million in the first season and never quite get to the $3 million he believes he is worth.

Also Friday, there was a toll paid by Dave Taylor, the Kings’ senior vice president and general manager, telling Stumpel that the team really did mean that the offer was final and, if it was rejected, we’ll talk to you again on July 1, 2001.

Coach Andy Murray has called to try to lure Stumpel to camp, but last week teammates trooped to the phones to advise the 28-year-old center to stay where he was, that he was worth what he was asking.

This should cause Taylor, Murray and the rest of the Kings’ suits the most concern, because it is indicative of a locker room fed up with ultimatums.

First, there was one issued to Rob Blake, the team captain until he was told to take a three-year, $22.5-million deal or risk being traded.

Blake figured to be a King lifer, an increasing rarity in the NHL. Like Taylor, who has never earned a paycheck from any other team, Blake wants to stay in Southern California and be a part of what he saw last season as a renaissance: a team with a playoff present and future. He lives in Manhattan Beach, likes it there and likes his role as the Kings’ heart and soul--if not their captain, a title he voluntarily relinquished last week.

The smart money says that the Kings won’t trade Blake, for whom there is a limited market anyway because of his $5.2675-million salary this season.

It makes more sense to re-sign him, and most of the Kings expect that to happen, if not now, then later in the season when the furor over the ultimatum dies down.

Stumpel is another story. His negotiations have exacerbated a bad situation. The Kings need Stumpel and the players know it. They see the Blake and Stumpel negotiations as the team following through with its stated goal of fiscal responsibility but doing so in a ham-fisted manner. They also see teammates fighting back, not so much for the money--Blake’s offer is near what he is seeking, and Stumpel was ready to sign Friday with only a couple of alterations, mainly in the bonus structure, in the Kings’ proposal--but because of the bullying tactics.

Two seasons ago, the Kings’ dressing room was split into factions, and a string of losses made a bad situation worse. Without Stumpel, and with Blake playing with a cloud over his head, a fast start is going to be difficult, even for a team that has improved its speed and skill. And a fast start is what earned last year’s team a playoff berth.

To the Kings it might be business, but to their players it is very, very personal.

SLASH AND BURN

There was a parade to the penalty box Friday night at the Arrowhead Pond, and the reason wasn’t necessarily the usual chippy play between the Mighty Ducks and Kings.

It was a new stance on an old rule involving slashing. Officials are being told to take it more seriously than in years past, when the stick was applied to an opponent with seeming impunity.

Referees have been advised that any “forceful swing” or “powerful chop” to an opponent above the waist, including the hands, is either a minor penalty, a five-minute major or a game misconduct.

They are looking at the blade of the stick, and if they see it in the air before it chops into an opponent’s gloves, somebody is going to pay in penalty time.

And this time, they say, they really mean it.

NEW MATH

The NHL standings are taking on a new look that is a year late.

When the league decided to award two points to a team that won in overtime but also give a team a point for just getting to overtime and losing, the standings added a fourth column, called “regulation ties.” Confusion reigned among readers trying to understand the arithmetic involving wins, losses, ties and regulation ties.

This year, regulation ties become “OTL,” or overtime losses. To find the number of games a team has played, add the four columns. To find the number of points the team has, add the points for wins, ties and overtime losses.

JUST WIN, PATRICK

To play as well as he has, for as long as he has, Patrick Roy has had to look beyond the puck coming at him at 90 mph.

“For a player, you must have an objective,” the Colorado goalie said Monday. “When I played my first game, all I wanted to do was survive. Then, when I got to Colorado and won my 300th game, I realized that it was possible to reach that objective.”

That objective is Terry Sawchuk’s record 447 victories as an NHL goalie, in a career that ended in 1970. Roy, who turns 35 on Oct. 5, has 444.

He already has won three Vezina trophies and a Stanley Cup and owns records for most playoff games (196) and playoff wins (121). But this one is special. Sawchuk is special to every goalie.

“Every time somebody gets close to a record, it brings back the memory of a great athlete and that’s good,” said Roy, who has dropped 12 pounds and adopted a serious off-season, off-ice training program for the first time in his career.

“If I still want to compete at this level, it’s something I needed to do,” he said. “I need to be quicker.”

And he needs to be in condition for his next objective: playing 1,000 games in goal. Nobody has ever done it in the NHL, and Roy has 841 and counting.

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STICKY SITUATION

Marty McSorley’s assault

trial began in Vancouver

with prosecutors showing

video of the former King

hitting Canucks’ Brashear

with his hockey stick during

Feb. 21 game. D8

KINGS REPORT: D8

DUCKS REPORT: D8