HOCKEY / LISA DILLMAN : The Joker Has Been Wild for Lightning

Chris Kontos put his magic stick away after a marvelous playoff series with the Kings in 1989, disappeared from the Los Angeles sports scene and seemed to tumble off the hockey map.

But Kontos, who already had had his second chance with the Kings, came up with another chance, probably his last, in Tampa, Fla., this season. His former New York Ranger connection, Phil Esposito, helped him sneak in there as president and general manager, and Lightning Coach Terry Crisp remembered what the left wing/center had done to the Edmonton Oilers during the 1989 playoffs, when Crisp was coaching the Calgary Flames.

At the start, Kontos, 28, was merely a footnote in Tampa Bay’s plans. Now he is perhaps the second-biggest story in the NHL, behind only Mario Lemieux and his scoring explosion.

Kontos has scored more goals than Eric Lindros. More than Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull and Mark Messier. His statistics are nearly identical to Pavel Bure’s.

After having never scored more than eight goals in an NHL season, Kontos has 19 goals and 24 points in his first 21 games. Through most of the season, he has ranked second only to Lemieux in goal-scoring.

“I’m just happy I’m getting a chance,” Kontos said. “Things are going well. The difference, partly, is that I’ve been given the chance to play. I’m just trying to make up for lost time.”

Lately, Kontos has been playing on a line with center Brian Bradley and right wing Marc Bureau. Typically, Kontos is most dangerous on the power play. He scored six of his nine playoff goals with the Kings on the power play. And this season, seven of his 19 have come with the opposition a man short.

For the first time in 10 years, Kontos is starting to feel secure. The expansion Lightning briefly held the top spot in the Norris Division, and Kontos recently earned his first bonus, awarded for scoring 15 goals. Additional bonuses will kick in when he hits Nos. 20, 25, 30 and so on, supplementing his bargain-basement salary of $150,000, $50,000 above the NHL’s minimum. “We’re selling out games and it’s exciting,” he said. “Hockey is being accepted here. I was at the grocery store today and I heard a couple of clerks talking about Detroit beating Pittsburgh, 8-0. They said, ‘I wish (the Red Wings) weren’t in our division.’ ”

Kontos said he smiled to himself at the grocery store.

“I was listening to them,” he said. “I just picked up my stuff and left. And I thought to myself, ‘It’s starting to happen here.’ ”

Apparently, the clerks didn’t recognize the Lightning’s first scoring star. That, though, is no surprise. Kontos recently pulled a Halloween prank on Crisp and his teammates.

He disguised himself as a fan, wearing a sweat shirt, jeans and a cap pulled down, obscuring his face. He also put in a set of wooden teeth. Then he stood by the dressing room door and asked his unsuspecting teammates for autographs.

They all signed. So did his coach.

Kontos had to work to keep from breaking up.

“I told (Crisp) that he should be playing that kid Kontos more on the power play,” Kontos said. “He just said, ‘Yeah, OK,’ and walked away.”

Then Kontos walked into the dressing room and told his teammates they had been had.

“A few of their jaws hit the floor,” he said. “Especially when a guy who talks with them every day is talking with them and getting their autograph and they don’t even know it.”

Maybe it was the false teeth that made the disguise work. Kontos likes wooden teeth. He has 10 to 12 sets at his disposal.

“It’s a hobby,” he said. “I make them myself. How long it takes depends on how detailed they are. I try to spread it out over four to five days.”

The teeth helped him pull off his favorite, and most successful, joke--the impersonation of goaltender Sam St. Laurent last season. Kontos was with the Canadian national team in Switzerland before the Olympics. Dave Hannan and Kontos were talking about Hannan’s new roommate, St. Laurent, who was scheduled to arrive late that night.

Hannan was upset because he had heard that St. Laurent was a smoker, and declared that he wouldn’t allow smoking in his room.

Kontos started thinking. He realized that Hannan had never met St. Laurent.

“I knew he was arriving at the hotel about 1 a.m.,” Kontos said. “So I put on a trench coat, glasses and teeth. Then I went to his room about 12:30. I knocked on his door.

“To make it more realistic, I spoke in a French accent and I had a cigarette I had borrowed.

“We talked and (Hannan) never knew. I was busting a gut, trying not to laugh. Eventually, after about 15 minutes, I had to tell him. To this day, it’s the best anyone had ever gotten him. Dave told everybody the next day.”

Kontos quit laughing when he was cut from the national team shortly thereafter. He spent the spring playing pickup hockey and waiting for what might be his final NHL opportunity--expansion.

Helping him make the most of his last chance was a book called “Psycho-Cybernetics.” His wife, Joanne, started reading it to him, and, pretty soon Kontos started flipping through it himself. One chapter, for instance, told him how to relax and put things in perspective.

“I knew if I had the chance, I could do this,” he said. “I feel I could have done this before if I had been given a chance.”

He doesn’t dwell on what happened with the Kings or any of his other teams. Robbie Ftorek, then the Kings’ coach, was instrumental in bringing Kontos to Los Angeles, but Ftorek was gone a few weeks after Kontos’ scoring outburst in the playoffs.

Tom Webster, successor to Ftorek, wasn’t a big fan of Kontos, and he played in only six games with the Kings during the 1989-90 season, spending most of his time in New Haven, Conn.

“All I can say is that I did my best for the team,” he said. “All I wanted was to do well there.”