A Couple of Weird Goals Give Winnipeg a 4-4 Tie With Kings

WINNIPEG, Canada —  Goalie Mark Fitzpatrick of the Kings knew it was going to be a crazy game when that puck that was pushed toward the boards early in the first period, the puck that he expected to rim around the glass and drop harmlessly behind his net, somehow hit a metal post and came at him like lightning. He didn’t even have time to react before the red light came on behind him.

In the official scoring, it’s recorded as Dave Ellett’s first goal of the night.

And then there was Ellett’s second goal, the score that Ellett put into the wide open net while his buddy Laurie Boschman was still on top of Fitzpatrick, having just crashed into Fitzpatrick and slammed him to the ice, clear of the goal, of course.

Fitzpatrick went looking for an interference ruling on that play. But the goal stood.

So even after Luc Robitaille and Wayne Gretzky had come through with their long-awaited goals in the later stages of the third period, the Kings were locked in a 4-4 tie with the Winnipeg Jets.

It was just a crazy night.

These teams have played 4 straight overtime games and have ended up with 3 straight ties. Which they did again Sunday night. Nobody scored in the overtime to leave the score 4-4.

Maybe it was the way these teams play to the limit. Maybe it was the magic of Gretzky. Whatever. The really crazy thing about the game Sunday night was the crowd. Those crazy hockey fans, all 15,094 of them, made their way through brutal weather to the Winnipeg Arena to witness another tie.

The blizzard that began during the Kings’ game here Friday night continued until Sunday morning, burying the city in white. But even after the snow had finally stopped falling, the combination of blowing snow, icy streets and temperatures that dipped to minus-20 degrees at game time made it a ridiculous night to be out on the town.

The crowd fell about 300 fans short of a sellout, but it was the fifth-largest crowd of the season at the Winnipeg Arena.

The blizzard was so bad on Saturday that the World Wrestling Federation card at the Arena had to be canceled because Randy (Macho Man) Savage and Miss Elizabeth could not fly in.

Harness racing was also canceled.

But not hockey. Not with the Kings holed up in a downtown hotel.

To check on the snowfall, players had to wander down to the lobby and look out the front door. All the windows were iced over.

It’s been a tough trip for the Kings, who lost at Calgary before coming to Winnipeg for two ties that stretched their winless streak to five games. The Kings are 0-3-2 since winning at Vancouver Dec. 23.

The Kings’ hold on second place in the Smythe Division is in danger. With a record of 24-15-3, the Kings have 51 points. Edmonton, the team that they will play at the Forum Tuesday, now has a record of 23-15-4 for 50 points.

Gretzky had tried to take all of the blame for the team’s slump after the tie Friday night. And Sunday, even after scoring the tying goal on a swoop behind the Jets’ net for the wrap-around score, Gretzky was not jumping for joy.

He was still pointing out the strengths of his teammates but noting his own shortcomings.

King Coach Robbie Ftorek said that he wasn’t too surprised at that. “I don’t agree with him (in judging himself so harshly), but I understand why he’s feeling that way,” Ftorek said. “That’s what a good hockey player would do.

“He’s a confident player, and when things don’t happen the way you visualize them, the way you expect them to go, you’re disappointed. You never look anywhere else but at yourself. That’s the mark of a good hockey player. . . .

“Only special people really see themselves as the ones to blame. The only thing that matters to a winner is wins. There are a lot of little things that don’t show up on the scorecard that matter a lot to him.”

All in all, though, the Kings seemed to be coming around in the third period when they were even in shots on goal (although they were outshot, 36-26 in the game) and they outscored the Jets, 3-1.

Ftorek had no complaints about the third period.

John Tonelli had skated right at Pokey Reddick early in the third period to put the Kings within a goal at 3-2.

But a few minutes later Fitzpatrick was knocked to the ice and Ellett stretched the Jets’ lead back to 4-2 at 7:04.

It went down as an unassisted goal, but Ellett got a big assist from Boschman, taking Fitzpatrick out of the play and leaving the net wide open for Ellett.

Fitzpatrick said: “The officials said that Doug Crossman knocked Boschman into me, but Crossman says he didn’t, and people who saw it on the TV replay upstairs tell me he didn’t.”

But Fitzpatrick didn’t let that setback bother him any more than he let that shot off the glass bother him in the first period.

As Robitaille points out: “Fitzpatrick doesn’t act like a rookie.”

He just dug in and shut them out the rest of the way.

Robitaille got the goal back at 10:45 of the period on a power play, putting in a pass from Bernie Nicholls, and Gretzky tied the game on his wrap-around shot after taking a pass from Robitaille.

“When you hear Wayne asking for the puck, you give it to him,” Robitaille said with a big grin.

Unlike the 4-4 tie on Friday night, when the Kings gave up the late goals and felt pretty low when it was over, it was the Kings who came back to get the tie Sunday, and they seemed a little more upbeat.

Ftorek said: “After our first period--we’ll take the tie.”

Fitzpatrick gave up 2 quick goals early on, Pat Elynuik skating past Fitzpatrick on the right side of the goal and taking a pass from Brent Ashton, who had drawn Fitzpatrick out to cut off what looked to be a shot coming from the left side.

After the Elynuik goal at 6:09, Boschman won the faceoff and passed the puck to Ellett, who swept the puck toward the boards in a move that everyone, including Fitzpatick, thought would send the puck skimming neatly around the curve and behind the net. But the puck hit metal and the Jets were up, 2-0, at 6:27.

Steve Duchesne made it 2-1 for the Kings at 10:43 on a shot from the top of the left circle that apparently glanced off a skate and past Reddick.

In the second period, Doug Smail skated around Crossman on a breakaway and put the puck into the right corner of the Kings’ net at 8:39, right between Fitzpatrick’s pads.

But nothing could top that weird shot off the glass. “That’s something that will happen one time out of a thousand,” Fitzpatrick said. “All you can do is laugh about it, say it was a crazy goal, that it’s early in the game and then bear down again.

“I hope I learned from it. They had a couple more off the glass like that in the third period, but I was more ready for them.”