Fans Take Heart, Then Get It Broken

You never know what to make of these Kings.

They are the masters of getting your hopes up.

You start to believe all the yakety-yak about what wonderful young defensemen they finally have--Rob Blake, Darryl Sydor, Alexei Zhitnik.

Then they give up nine goals.

You appreciate their relief at finally having this injury-prone team back at full strength--Wayne Gretzky, Corey Millen, Tomas Sandstrom, Blake.

Then Charlie Huddy gets hurt.

You want them to succeed.

It is a firm that has been in the ice-hockey business for close to 30 years, but has been to the same number of Stanley Cup finals as the Mighty Ducks.

You keep your fingers crossed.

You want to believe.

The right player comes along, the right owner comes along, the right coach comes along and before long they have you convinced that they know what they are doing.

Then they trade Paul Coffey, who is not only a mentor-rabbi-Big Brother to the younger defensemen but the kind of player whose team wins Stanley Cups wherever he goes.

And then they begin to play musical goaltender, promoting Rick Knickle from the One Step From Oblivion division and bouncing Robb Stauber up and down like a marionette.

They go with Kelly Hrudey in goal for the playoffs, whereupon he plays one of his biweekly clutch games and then surfaces afterward long enough to tell everybody what “dummies� they were when it came to judging his previous performances.

In keeping with Hrudey’s desire for more positive coverage, it should be pointed out in all fairness that in Game 2 at Calgary, he did single-handedly hold the opposition to fewer than 10 goals.

The Kings make you crazy.

Every time you think you have them pegged, they fool you.

You think it practically impossible that a team could go out and acquire Gretzky, Huddy, Hrudey, Coffey, Sandstrom, Millen, Jari Kurri and Tony Granato and still not rise one rung higher in the standings.

You would never believe that a team could have those players and Luc Robitaille at the top of his game and still not gain home-ice advantage for even one lousy round of the playoffs.

They even got back the guy they gave up for Gretzky, Jimmy Carson, who so far has been their hottest scorer of the playoffs, but it cost them Coffey to get him and you aren’t as confident in these younger King defensemen as others suddenly appear to be.

You take heart in all the experience on this roster.

On the other hand, you wonder if any team with nine players 32 or older might be getting a little too long in the tooth--presuming that some of them still have teeth.

That’s the way it is with these Kings.

You never have any feel for them. You never can tell for sure if they have any direction or are stumbling around in the dark.

It wouldn’t have occurred to anybody without a crystal ball or a Ouija board that a team with Gretzky, Kurri, Robitaille, etc., might have its Stanley Cup hopes riding on, of all people, Rick Knickle in goal.

But that’s exactly where it’s at, unless you keep throwing Hrudey back out there, come hell or high water, even coming off a nine-goal leak.

The King defense was so careless Wednesday that getting his second goal of the playoffs was Calgary defenseman Trent Yawney, who had scored exactly one goal in 84 regular-season games.

Now it’s the playoffs and suddenly he’s Super Mario Yawney.

Also skating rings around the Kings for the opposition was Gary Roberts, who sat out 24 games with a thigh injury so severe, it was considered career-threatening.

Now it’s the playoffs and Roberts gets three assists in one night and suddenly he’s Bobby Orr.

One of the complaints of hockey players in general, and the King first-string goaltender in particular, is that some people put too much stock in one poor game.

But that’s the point. That’s the trouble with the Kings, that they have shown so little consistency--not for a season but for more than a quarter of a century--that they constantly test one’s faith.

Out they go, skating their thermal underwear off, during Game 1 of the playoffs and the Flames never know what hit them. Three days later, well rested and theoretically ready, they phone in the second and third periods.

Barry Melrose said before Game 2 that there was no reason to believe the Kings would let down in any way. Barry’s new around here. He hasn’t seen the Kings let down and let down and let down again.

This year can be different. This year, the Kings can make up for an awful lot of last years.

But will they?