Zhamnov Scores 5, but Kings Tie Jets, 7-7 : Hockey: He is the first player in NHL this season to score that many, taking advantage of weak defense.

Winnipeg center Alexei Zhamnov became the first player in the NHL to score five goals in a game this season, taking advantage of the hapless King defense and two King goaltenders--Kelly Hrudey and Grant Fuhr--as the Jets and Kings played to a 7-7 tie on Saturday night before a sellout crowd of 16,005 at the Forum.

Three other players had scored four goals in a game this season--Bernie Nicholls of Chicago, Luc Robitaille of Pittsburgh and Sergei Fedorov of Detroit.

Nicholls has done it twice this season, with one of the four-goal performances coming against the Kings. And Fedorov did it against the Kings as well, missing a chance for his fifth goal when he was stopped on a penalty shot in overtime.

Zhamnov had never scored four goals in a game. But he reached that plateau by the 3:57 mark of the third period, giving the Jets a 6-5 lead. He beat Fuhr by scoring on his own rebound. Then Zhamnov put Winnipeg ahead 7-5 at 9:27 with his fifth of the game and 22nd of the season, beating Fuhr on a breakaway, tucking the puck inside the right post.

But the Kings managed to climb back into the game on Kevin Brown’s second goal of the season, at 12:27, cutting the Jets’ lead to 7-6. King defenseman Darryl Sydor tied it 7-7 with with his fourth of the season, putting away his own rebound with 3:03 remaining in regulation.

The Kings and Jets are hardly defensive powers and the up-and-down first five minutes of the third period was a perfect illustration. There were four goals in the first 3:37, two by the Kings and two by the Jets.

Winnipeg had taken a 4-3 lead into the third period and went up by two when Zhamnov completed his hat trick at 1:25, scoring his 20th of the season on a shot from the left point after he circled in the zone. And that was it for King starting goaltender Kelly Hrudey, who was pulled after allowing five goals on 21 shots.

Thirteen was certainly not a lucky number for Hrudey, who was making his 13th consecutive start. King Coach Barry Melrose elected to start Hrudey even though Fuhr had looked sharp in relief in two periods against Vancovuer on Wednesday.

Fuhr seemed to give the Kings something of a momentary lift as they responded with two goals in a 43-second span. Rookie center Yanic Perreault scored his second of the season at 2:39, pulling the Kings within one goal at he beat Winnipeg goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin all alone at the right post after taking a pass from King defenseman Michel Petit.

King right wing Rick Tocchet tied it 5-5 at 3:22, with his team-leading 18th goal of the season, scoring on a wraparound, which was his second goal of the game. The other King goals were scored by Wayne Gretzky, his eighth and ninth of the season.

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King Notes

Rookie enforcer Matt Johnson had his head shaved--perhaps auditioning for a part in the sequel to Pulp Fiction--when the Kings were in Vancouver on Wednesday. Since then, he lost a third-period fight to Canuck enforcer Tim Hunter in the Kings’ 5-2 loss and dropped a narrow decision to the Jets’ Tie Domi in the first period on Saturday. . . Center Robert Lang, back in the doghouse again, was a healthy scratch for the third consecutive game. The other scratches were defensemen Denis Tsygurov (sore foot and strained groin), Rob Blake (strained groin) and Tim Watters (strained groin), center Kevin Todd (knee surgery) and forwards Jari Kurri (strained groin) and Troy Crowder (sprained wrist).