Kings Win in Slugfest : Gretzky, Taylor, Allison Lead Rout Against Devils, 9-3

The brawl that had been in the making all night finally erupted behind the New Jersey Devils’ net with the final buzzer.

And not one of the Kings was surprised.

After losses on the road to Calgary and Vancouver--tight-checking games that took the fancy-skating, high-scoring Kings right out of their game--they figured the Devils would try the same tactics Tuesday night at the Forum. And the Kings had decided that they just weren’t going to take it anymore.

Captain Dave Taylor said: “We lost against Calgary and Vancouver because they played a close game with a lot of punching and jabbing. We said before the game that if New Jersey played like that, we’d fight back.”

So the Kings gave as good as they got, and, boosted by 2-goal nights from Wayne Gretzky, Dave Taylor and Mike Allison, they ended up with a 9-3 victory over the Devils and their talented young goalie, Sean Burke.

But the glorious moment of victory got a little messy as some of the 11,505 fans at the Forum tossed beer over the glass onto the combatants.

The final fisticuffs began after Ken Baumgartner skated behind the goal with about 6 seconds left in the game and bumped the only available player in a Devil uniform.

“I don’t know why I bumped him. I shouldn’t have even been back there,” Baumgartner said. “But that’s what started it, and all hell broke loose.”

King owner Bruce McNall stopped by Baumgartner’s locker to congratulate him on a good game, and Baumgartner tried to apologize to McNall for starting the fracas.

“It’s all right, it’s all right, don’t worry about it,” McNall told him. “They were causing trouble all night. You played a good game.”

As McNall walked away, Baumgartner said: “It wasn’t really much of a fight. It was more of a scrum.”

Still, Baumgartner ended up with a 5-minute penalty for fighting and a 10-minute game misconduct, as did several other players.

Marty McSorley, the biggest of the Kings and the player most likely to be the show-stopper on a fight card like that, missed the whole incident. He had already headed for the locker room after picking up a 5-minute penalty for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct with 8 seconds left.

“I thought it was over with Marty’s fight at the end,” Luc Robitaille said.

McSorley, who made it through his night of enforcement with hardly a mark on his face but with several bloody knuckles, thought that his fight should have ended it, too.

“But the refs are stopping the fights too soon, that’s the problem,” he said.

Responding to quizzical looks, he explained: “If they would let two guys go ahead and fight, two guys who are physically evenly matched, then they can take care of it. But the refs keep breaking up the fights early.”

So the littler Kings had to finish the fight at the end, with McSorley unavailable.

And here McSorley has been trying to lose his image as a thug.

“I think of myself as more of a deterrent than as an instigator. But when they take us out of our game, it’s the job of myself and a couple of other guys to let them know they can’t do that . . .

“They have a big hockey team. Every line has a big guy on it. They had some success last year. They had a taste of it, and they’re hungry. I knew this game would be like this.”

Besides, he said, the Kings’ big lead contributed. When a team is down by several goals in the final period, penalties can’t hurt much.

The fight just made a long night even longer for Burke, who stayed on the ice for the duration of the battle.

Why not? Glenn Healy, the Kings’ goalie, skated the length of the ice and joined in, too.

Burke had some frustrations to work out, anyway. All night, the Kings had treated him more like a rookie than a playoff star. And he’s both.

Burke, 21, is still officially a rookie, even though he led the Devils within a game of the Stanley Cup finals last season. He played with the Canadian Olympic team until March 1 before joining the Devils. He went 10-1 with a goals-against average of 3.05 the rest of the regular season.

But this season, he is 7-10-1 after his encounter with the high-scoring Kings. Still, he wasn’t a bit timid in his first appearance at the Forum.

Burke, a 6-foot 3-inch, 205-pounder who is known to clear his crease if need be, got Gretzky riled early when he tripped him and then gave him a shove as Gretzky was trying to pick himself up off the ice.

Maybe he shouldn’t have done that. Gretzky ended up with 2 goals and 2 assists.

Allison, who had just 1 goal going into the game, also scored a pair, as did Taylor. Robitaille, Dean Kennedy and Dale DeGray joined in the shelling.

The Kings raised their record to 16-9 as they moved back into second place in the Smythe Division. The Devils extended their winless streak to 6 games as they wrapped up a 4-game trip.

The game started slowly, got nasty in the second period and became wide-open in the third before the postgame fisticuffs.

Robitaille found no fault with the play of Burke, saying: “Those were good goals we scored. He didn’t have a bad game. He made some good saves--some great saves.”

Taylor gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 13:05 of the first period, fighting off a check by Randy Velischek and then putting in the rebound of a shot by Robitaille.

If the first period was rough, the second was rougher and packed with penalties--28 minutes for the Kings, figuring in a 10-minute misconduct to Baumgartner, and 27 minutes for the Devils, figuring in a 10-minute misconduct to David Maley and a 2-minute bench penalty.

It was at 10:09 of the second period that Allison scored his first goal, deflecting a long slapshot by Bob Carpenter past Burke.

John MacLean put the Devils back within a goal at 12:26, before Allison added his second goal on a power play, scoring on a rebound after a shot by Mike Krushelnyski. Kennedy made it 4-1 with just 35 seconds left in the period.

At the start of the third period, a goal by Patrik Sundstrom brought the Devils within 2 goals, and at 4:25, MacLean scored his second goal for the Devils on a power play to make it a 1-goal game.

But the Kings, the highest-scoring team in the league, weren’t finished.

Gretzky passed from the top of the right circle to Taylor, who scored at 5:57, and Robitaille added a pretty goal of his own at 8:29 for a 6-3 lead.

The score went to 7-3 when Gretzky tucked in a rebound of a shot by Steve Duchesne. Then it was DeGray’s turn, and Gretzky’s again.

Burke said: “They’ve got four good lines out there, and if you don’t play your best hockey and play defense, they’re gonna make you look silly. They embarrassed us tonight.”

King Notes

Goalie Rollie Melanson cleared waivers Tuesday. His future with the club is uncertain. . . . Goalie Glenn Healy continues to lead the NHL in victories with 13, which tops his total of 12 last season as a rookie. . . . The Devils are 1-22-5 at the Forum since they came into the league as the Kansas City Scouts in 1974. . . . Until Tuesday night, the Kings’ smallest crowd this season was 11,250 for Vancouver on Nov. 15.

The Kings returned right winger Gord Walker to the New Haven Nighthawks and recalled center/winger Brian Wilks.