Kings Burned in Loss to Bruins, 7-3

Wayne Gretzky tried to get the attention of the officials and inspire what was left of his team by scraping Dale DeGray’s blood off the ice and offering up the shavings on the blade of his stick.

Getting no reaction from the officials, Gretzky slammed his stick back to the ice.

He was frustrated that there would be no power play to pay for the cut in DeGray’s mouth; frustrated that he had played another game with Bruins on top of him and had only one assist to show for his efforts, and frustrated that the Kings were going to lose the Bruins again.

If it weren’t for Boston, the Kings’ slump would be over. The Kings went into their game Wednesday night with only one defeat in their last five games--a loss at Boston. And they lost to Boston again, 7-3, before a sellout crowd of 16,005 in the Forum.

Not a very good way to open a four-game home stand.

Asked about the cause of his obvious frustration, Gretzky addressed first things first.

“It’s frustrating that we’ve been playing poorly,” Gretzky said. “They’ve played two pretty good games against us, and they shut us down.”

Boston Coach Terry O’Reilly said that his game plan was simple. “The plan was to stay with Gretzky and put three guys on him at all times. The other two guys could handle their other four on the ice.”

And it worked.

The Kings wrapped up the season series with Boston at 1-2, as their record dipped to 30-23-5. Boston is 24-24-11.

The lack of a game-misconduct call after the injury to DeGray was more frustrating to the Kings in light of the call that sent Mike Allison out of the game just 1:25 into the third period. Ray Bourque took a stick to the mouth, and Allison was hit with a five-minute high-sticking call and the automatic game misconduct.

Allison said: “I slashed his stick just as he was backhanding the puck. His stick came up and hit him. My stick wasn’t even high. But that’s the rule this year. That’s what’s been happening. It’s an automatic call, so I can’t argue with it. . . . I just don’t understand why they didn’t make the same call when Dale DeGray was hit.”

The officials told Gretzky they didn’t see that one.

Mike Krushelnyski of the Kings also was ejected just 56 seconds into the third period, presumably for something that he said, though Krushelnyski said he had “no idea” why he had earned his game misconduct.

It didn’t help the Kings to play the third period without Allison and Krushelnyski.

But Gretzky thought that the Kings might still have a chance if they had been given a power-play opportunity with the game still at 6-3.

Maybe not. Boston is a very good defensive team, and three goals is hard to make up.

The Kings were already down, 4-1, early in the second period.

King Coach Robbie Ftorek pulled starting goalie Glenn Healy as soon as Bernie Nicholls scored the first of his two goals to make it 4-2.

Rollie Melanson made his first appearance in the net for the Kings since last October. Melanson was sent in to replace Healy at 8:21 of the second period.

Healy had played 28:31 and had given up four goals on 11 shots. The loss was Healy’s.

Melanson, who was called up New Haven on Feb. 6 and was with the Kings at all stops on their last trip, has not played for the Kings since an Oct. 17 game at Calgary, which he lost, 11-4. Melanson had sprained a knee in the Kings’ opener, a victory over Detroit, and had not played again until the game at Calgary, when he reinjured the knee.

Melanson played 31:29 and gave up three goals on 19 shots.

Healy, asked if he had been replaced because of an injury, said that the only thing hurt was his ego.

“We gave up too many outnumbered attacks,” he said “We didn’t play our game. Boston is a very patient team that really waits for their opportunities.”

Melanson gave up the fifth goal to the Bruins at 15:45 of the second period to Bob Joyce on a two-on-one breakaway.

Greg Hawgood, also taking advantage of a two-on-one situation, scored the Bruins’ first goal against Healy on a shot from the top of the left circle at 2:39 of the first period.

Nicholls tied it for the Kings at 9:34. But Randy Burridge and Ray Bourque scored to give the Bruins a 3-1 lead before the end of the second period.

Former King Bobby Carpenter, traded to the Bruins Jan. 23 in the deal for Jay Miller and Steve Kasper, scored his first goal for Boston at 3:09 of the second period.

Carpenter was trailing Greg Johnston, who had fired a shot that Healy stopped with his chest. The puck dropped just a few feet from Healy, who had come out of the crease to meet the attack, and Carpenter picked up the loose puck and put it in an open net.

Nicholls again closed the gap to two goals on a shot from the left circle after taking a pass from Luc Robitaille that had been deflected by a Bruin stick.

Cam Neely scored the first goal of the third period to put the Bruins ahead, 6-2, at 8:02. The Kings didn’t answer that goal until 14:57 when Kasper scored.

Kings Notes

With Bernie Nicholls’ first goal Thursday night, the Kings extended their scoring streak to 230 games, the longest current scoring streak. They are tied with Quebec for the second-longest streak in National Hockey League history. Calgary holds the record, scoring in 264 straight games. . . . For Mike Allison, a second high-sticking penalty this season means that he will miss the game Saturday night against Quebec as he serves an automatic one-game suspension. . . . The season’s 16th sellout at the Forum Wednesday night doubled the Kings’ previous record of eight sellouts set during the 1984-85 season.