Crowning Achievement

What would you get if you threw together the greatest player in the game, a handful of future Hall of Famers, an owner on the edge of financial insolvency, a touch of Hollywood, one of the most riveting playoff games in the modern era, a dubious episode known as Stickgate and a monstrous mullet that gave birth to the phrase “greasy hockey?”

You would have had the 1993 Kings, Stanley Cup finalists for the only time in franchise history.

Dressed in silver and black, they resembled the Raiders sartorially and the Showtime Lakers stylistically. With Wayne Gretzky flinging the puck and owner Bruce McNall tossing money around with equal abandon, with rookie coach Barry Melrose carrying himself as a Pat Riley wannabe from haircut to toe, the Kings briefly captivated a town that previously preferred only its late-night libations on ice.

Four months before the Mighty Ducks played their first game, the ’93 Kings gave Southern California its first taste of Stanley Cup fever. They didn’t quite claim the prize, losing the finals to Montreal in five games, but they took a city of baseball and basketball fans on an unprecedented ride that climaxed on May 29, 1993, in Toronto, Game 7 of the Campbell Conference finals.

It was then that Gretzky finally made good on the promise that came with him following his 1988 trade from Edmonton. Gretzky scored three goals and added an assist in a 5-4 King victory, getting the monkey -- or was that a piano? -- off his back with a performance Gretzky calls the finest of his peerless career.

It was the biggest moment in the history of a long, ramshackle franchise.

Maybe too big.

“I feel at the end of that series, we should have taken the trophy away, set it down, and said, ‘That’s enough, we’re done,’ ” said Marty McSorley, whose infamous illegal stick paved the Kings’ downfall against the Canadiens.

The Ducks’ initial appearance in the finals has brought back recollections of the Kings’ wild ride. As with the Ducks, the Kings worked overtime in the ’93 finals, losing three consecutive overtime games to the Canadiens. Ten years later, you have kids on fields and rinks shouting and pretending to be Ducks’ goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere. In 1993, youngsters in Southern California were imitating the Kings’ charismatic Kelly Hrudey.

“When we were playing, my daughters were quite a bit younger and they played soccer,” said Dave Taylor, now the Kings’ general manager. “I remember the soccer goalie used to get a blue band and tie it around her hair like Kelly Hrudey.”

There were some differences too. The ’93 Kings rose and fell by the shootout, not the shutout. In the first round of the playoffs, the Kings gave up nine goals in a Game 2 loss to Calgary before scoring 18 goals in the final two games of that series, twice as many as the Ducks scored in their series against the Minnesota Wild.

“It was really the first time in the Kings’ history where they went to another level, the excitement and the buzz in the city was really electric,” said Gretzky, now the managing partner of the Phoenix Coyotes. “People were really enjoying watching the games. The era of the game was probably a little more wide open. You could have a 7-5 playoff game.

“So not only were we winning, but from a fan’s point of view, it was extremely exciting. There’s always been a buzz about it. People still ask about it.”

And whereas it has taken the Ducks two months of improbable playoff success to coax Disney Chairman Michael Eisner out to a home game, the Kings were accompanied by Hollywood glitterati and movers and shakers every step of the way.

“One thing you can say abut the L.A. Kings in ’93 -- we were never boring,” Melrose said. “It was not a boring group. When was the last time a president [Ronald Reagan] has been to the finals? There’s no [former Sony chairman] Peter Gubers around, no stars hanging around.”

Melrose, now a hockey analyst for ESPN, appreciates the symmetry of a Duck Stanley Cup run 10 years after the Kings’ quest.

“That’s the rule the NHL has in place -- every 10 years a California team must make the final,” he said with his distinctive laugh. The Melrose chortle is the same as it was when he exchanged quips with the likes of Pat Burns, Jacques Demers and Pat Quinn in 1993.

He continued on the California-in-the-Stanley Cup theme.

“But I really thought it was going to be San Jose,” Melrose said. “I wasn’t thinking Ducks. I was thinking San Jose. San Jose had a great team and they sort of demolished it. The Kings were on the building track and things were really looking good till this year.

“It really came along at the right time for California. They needed something like this.”

The Kings began their 1992-93 season branded as perennial underachievers -- despite Gretzky’s presence, they had yet to advance beyond the second round -- and opened training camp with major questions.

Gretzky suffered a career-threatening injury during training camp, a herniated disk in his back. He said noted specialist Dr. Robert Watkins consulted six other experts, and that three advised surgery and three voted for therapy and rehabilitation. Gretzky picked the latter option.

Melrose had never coached a game at the major-league level and was dismissed by some skeptics as little more than a loud mouth with a louder haircut.

Gretzky missed the first 39 games, forcing Melrose to experiment, putting Jari Kurri at center and giving the captain’s responsibility to Luc Robitaille. Kurri responded with 46 points in his first 22 games and Robitaille flourished under his new assignment, aided by a trio of young defensemen -- Rob Blake, Darryl Sydor and Alex Zhitnik -- that improved on a weekly basis.

The Kings finished the regular season 39-35-10, third place in the Smythe Division, and did not have home-ice advantage in any of their four playoff series. They struggled past Calgary in six games in the first round, and needed another six games -- and a double-overtime goal by Gary Shuchuk in Game 5 -- to get by Vancouver in the second.

That set up the conference finals showdown against Toronto. Prodigal son Gretzky versus the motherland of hockey. The tradition-rich Maple Leafs versus the nouveau-riche surfers-on-ice.

“That was magical,” Melrose said. “It was just so perfect.

There was no better way to start it with a melee at the end of Game 1 in Toronto, sparked by the Kings’ McSorley. Melrose and Maple Leaf coach Pat Burns exchanged barbs, with Melrose making fun of Burns’ heft by puffing out his cheeks like a bloated fish.

Later, Melrose’s wife, Cindy, called Burns “Fat Burns” in a radio interview and stood up for her husband at the Forum when she ran into Don Cherry of the CBC in the corridor.

“I’ve made up with Don Cherry. I’ve made up with Pat Burns,” Melrose said.

“I’ve made up with everybody. There’s a lot of enemies. I had to mend a lot of fences when I got out of coaching.”

Later, Gretzky’s abilities were questioned in no uncertain terms in his home country when the Kings fell behind in the series, 3 games to 2. One Canadian columnist wrote that he had slowed dramatically, skating as though he had a piano on his back. Gretzky clipped the article out and put it in his wallet for motivation.

“All of a sudden, we’re down, 3-2, and I’m going, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ I didn’t particularly play well in Game 5. I just felt like I had to regroup,” Gretzky said. “I felt excited. I wanted to play well. I didn’t want to go out, with people saying that the team and Wayne played well for two rounds, but it’s over.

“He probably was writing the truth at the time. You can take those things and either pout about it or go out there and prove people wrong. I’ve said many times, I think it was the best game I ever played in the NHL, Game 7 in Toronto.”

The coaches and his teammates agreed. Melrose and his assistant Cap Raeder said it was the most vocal Gretzky had ever been in the dressing room beforehand and on the bench. They joked that they didn’t need to say anything to their players.

In Game 6, Gretzky had the game-winner in overtime in Los Angeles, and responded with a hat trick and an assist in Game 7.

Hrudey was able to witness a special scene late in the game.

“I still remember after he scored his hat trick goal, and if I’m not mistaken, there were about three or four minutes left in the game, to give us a 5-3 lead, and he sat on the bench,” Hrudey said. “I’ll always remember that moment, he made a gesture towards his dad, ‘Yeah we did it.’ ”

It did seem like the end, in a sense, on May 29 when they won Game 7 in hostile territory. The Kings, unlike the understated Ducks, took in the moment and hung on, celebrating in the dressing room. An emotional Gretzky kissed the same trophy that Paul Kariya refused to touch.

The Kings didn’t have much time to absorb the accomplishment, leaving for Montreal the next day because the finals started June 1. Gretzky had another four-point performance in Game 1 against the Canadiens and the Kings led, 2-1, in Game 2 with 1:45 remaining. Plans for covering victory parades were being made when McSorley was called for an illegal stick.

Montreal scored on the ensuing power play, won it in overtime and turned over the controls to another hot young French-Canadian goaltender, Patrick Roy, and, well, you know the rest.

The Kings’ Tony Granato, now the coach of the Colorado Avalanche, said he has spoken with Roy about the drama of the series. Roy, incidentally, retired last week. In that postseason, he recorded 10 consecutive wins in overtime.

“Obviously, he’s still got the glitter in his eye and the smile on his face,” Granato said. “I could see through his mask as he was stoning us throughout that series. As much as you hated him, even in that series, you respected him so much.”

McSorley felt the Kings weren’t as carefree in the finals as they had been in previous rounds.

“We were a very young team,” he said. “I can remember looking down the bench, getting ready to go back on the ice and getting the feeling that there was a lot of nervousness.”

Still, Robitaille and his teammates felt it was a given they would be back in the finals the next season, aided by experience and maturity. That, of course, didn’t happen, and the likes of Robitaille and Blake had to leave Los Angeles to get their Stanley Cup rings. Melrose never made the playoffs again and moved to the broadcast booth.

Granato sounded a cautionary note -- which may or may not apply to the Ducks -- of ensuing setbacks to other surprise teams of past playoffs.

“It was a great run, and when you get that close and you lose, it takes a long time to recover from that,” he said. “I think when a team that does that, similar to Carolina did last year. Teams that make great runs and don’t finish, it catches up and takes its toll on you the next season.

“I think that’s what happened. I don’t want to say we felt sorry for ourselves, but to recover from a loss like that, it’s more than, ‘We’ll put this behind us and get ready for next season.’ We never really got on track the next year.”